Edwin Poots denies being source of leaders’ meeting leak

The DUP MLA took to social media to tackle what he called “untruthful” speculation that he was behind the story on the Nolan Show in which it was alleged Sir Jeffrey held discussions about re-joining the Ulster Unionists.

Since the claims over the supposedly clandestine meeting between the unionist leaders was made last week there have been disputed versions of what the discussion was about.

Mr Poots said “some individuals” in the local media have claimed a member of the DUP leaked details of the meeting.

“My name has been mentioned a number of times. This is entirely untruthful,” Mr Poots said on social media.

The Donaldson-Beattie meeting took place just after Edwin Poots took over for a short period as DUP leader.

Mr Poots narrowly defeated Sir Jeffrey in the first ever DUP leadership contest in the party’s 50 year history. This had followed an internal party coup that ousted Arlen Foster as DUP leader and forced her out of the post as First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Sir Jeffrey has repeated his claim this week that it was “nonsense” to report that he was about to defect to the UUP.

The current DUP leader denied he ever contemplated leaving the party and going back to the Ulster Unionists whom he left back in 2003.

“On the issue of rejoining, matters went no further as I determined that I was not rejoining the UUP,” Sir Jeffrey said.

But Mr Beattie insisted on Monday evening that there was “no ambiguity” about the agenda of their meeting at Thiepval Army barracks last year.

Mr Beattie challenged Sir Jeffrey to answer a number of questions relating to his decision to agree to their discussion.

“Who did he tell he was meeting me? Did his party know? Did his chairman know? Did his Westminster colleagues or first minister know? If nobody knew then why?”