Allister challenges Donaldson on O’Neill stance

Mr Allister claimed the DUP leader said “I haven’t ruled out anything in or out” when asked on BBC Radio Ulster’s ‘Talkback’ programme if he would confirm that his party would not serve under Michelle O’Neill.

The TUV leader said: “What a contrast with the TUV! We are clear and providing a rock solid guarantee that we will never provide a stooge deputy to a Sinn Fein first minister.

“TUV would unapologetically block Michelle O’Neill. If unionists want to be certain that their vote will never be used to enthrone Sinn Fein TUV 1 is their only guarantee. After doing so they should maximise the unionist vote by transferring to all pro-Union anti-protocol candidates.”

Meanwhile, a fellow TUV candidate has said that the Belfast Agreement has failed the innocent victims of the Troubles.

Trevor Clarke, who is standing in West Tyrone, said the interests of those who lost everything to terrorism have been betrayed by the 1998 agreement.

He said: “The Belfast Agreement was only ever about one thing: appeasing the most ruthless terrorist organisation in western Europe to the extent it would agree to step away from a horrific, illegal terror campaign that devastated lives and enshrined division here.

“The interests of people who lost everything during the Troubles, through no fault of their own, have not been served by this bad agreement. Irish republican terrorists have been the principal beneficiaries of an agreement that shortened the jail time of terrorist bombers and murderers, limited sentences to two years for those subsequently convicted of pre-1998 terrorist crimes, and delivered Tony Blair’s amnesty for wanted IRA criminals.”

Mr Clarke continued: “Whilst the British state and its security forces are constantly in the courts, those who imposed the terror in an attempt to circumvent democracy enjoy the luxuries of political office here, and the Dublin government evades all culpability for the significant role the Irish state played in facilitating the IRA terror campaign.

“All of this whilst an implicit threat of a potential threat of a return to violence remains. The Belfast Agreement has looked after the wrongdoers and punished their victims.”