Conservative Party in Northern Ireland: Members row over impact of Chris Heaton Harris' budget on candidates in council election

He contacted the News Letter to say that he had has requested that the members of the party from across NI "be given the opportunity to be addressed by Mr Heaton-Harris and

be allowed to express either their support or displeasure with his stewardship of his office" at the NI's party's AGM in June.

His reasoning, he said, was that Mr Heaton-Harris published a budget for NI last week which was "very unhelpful to local Tory candidates seeking election next week".

He added that Mr Heaton-Harris is "very unsupportive of the local party, has never publicly been seen with members and is unlikely to canvas with them for next week's council elections".

The founding member of the NI party said he could not remember the last time a Tory secretary of State failed to address the NI AGM since the party was founded in the mid-1980s.

The News Letter invited the Northern Ireland Office to comment but it offered no response.

Instead, the Chairman of the Conservative Party in NI, Matthew Robinson, sent the News Letter a statement.

"The Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris has my full support and confidence as Chairman of the Conservative and Unionist Party in Northern Ireland," he said. "His sterling record in the role is self-evident; he continues to step up for the Northern Irish people in the absence of a functioning Executive. Mr Lomas does not speak for the Party locally.”

Mr Robinson said the request by Lomas for NI Tories to meet with Mr Heaton-Harris at the AGM does not stand.

However Mr Lomas said that normal procedure would be for his proposal to go before the Management Team of the NI Executive, who would decide whether it would make it onto the AGM's agenda.

It is estimated that the NI party won about 0.03% of the vote in the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election.