General election 2024: North Antrim - Ian Paisley's farewell speech IN FULL after being defeated by new MP Jim Allister
Below is the concession speech given this morning by Ian Paisley, the former MP for North Antrim.
The DUP man’s fate was officially confirmed late, after a whole night of vote-counting in the constituency.
It was close.
Jim Allister too 11,642 votes (28.3%), and Mr Paisley 11,192 (27.2%).
No-one else was remotely near.
He had been an MP since 2010, when he replaced his father in the seat.
Here in full is his farewell speech as MP:
Mr returning officer, ladies and gentlemen of the count, can I thank you – can I thank you in particular for your patience tonight.
And thank you for all of your efforts and all of your activities that you took place in in the last 24 hours or so.
I'd also like to thank my own team who are here for all the hard work and effort they made.
It's absolutely right we know the effort that is made, we know the sweat that is put into this and that's what politics is and I appreciate that effort.
Thank each and every one of you. I won't name you individually because I would of course leave someone out but I do thank you – you know exactly who you are.
The tides of life ebb and flow as we all know.
And this certainly is not the script I would've written for tonight, as I think most of you would accept. But I think life is made up of many chapters and I embrace the next chapter as happily as I've embraced the previous chapters.
I congratulate my successor I commend all of those who took part in this race – the race to the finish. And I wish them well.
Being a member of Parliament is a huge privilege. It's been a huge privilege for me over 14 years as an MP and a previous 13 in the Northern Irelan Assembly to serve my constituency.
And I greatly appreciate the support they've given me.
Thank you very much Mr returning officer.
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