MLA dismisses idea of 'sexist and racist' DUP in light of invective from Ireland's Future figure

Joanne Bunting was responding to remarks by Andrew Clarke, a speaker who has been promoted by Ireland's Future as an example of someone from a unionist background who now rejects the Union.

He was due to speak at Wednesday night's gathering at the Ulster Hall, but pulled out after the News Letter began asking questions about his record of anti-unionist invective on Twitter.

Reviewing his comments, Ms Bunting said they were "nonsense," and that they paint a dark picture of what the future might hold for unionists in a hypothetical united Ireland.

Whilst a promotional video for Ireland's Future shows Mr Clarke using measured language to set out his support for Irish unity, his publicly-viewable Twitter feed was a different story.

In the span of several weeks he attacked Orange members as "sickening", "disgusting," and "Ulster's shame", said the royal family should be thrown in the sea, and said he "should be legally allowed to batter the head off" columnists whom he dislikes.

As for the DUP, he said it is "a party of hatred and oppression and I have zero tolerance for them or the bigots who support them".

He added: "They work tirelessly to perpetuate hatred against women, against the LGBTQ+ community, against anyone who isn't a white PUL.

"If you vote for them, you are a c***... a hateful party arguably defined by their fundamentalist noncery and sheer hatred for non-white PUL people."

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Ireland’s Future figure declared all DUP voters ‘c***s’ and said party ‘spreads hatred against women and non-white people’

Ms Bunting, DUP MLA for East Belfast, said there is "zero evidence of that", adding: "We didn't get to where we are by just having male voters!

"The people we help are from every part of the community. We dont ask people when they come to us for help anything about their backgrounds – we ask 'what is the issue and what can we do'?

"If this is the type of treatment Protestants and unionists can expect in even a conversation about a united Ireland – never mind the reality of it - where does that leave society?

"And this man is supposed to be an example for the conversation?! What are we to expect from that conversation, when you're denigrated in advance of it."

Mr Clarke had also spoken out in his tweets against commemorating UUP politician Robert Bradford, who was shot dead in 1981 in Finaghy, south Belfast.

He said UUP man Rev Bradford was a "unionist supremacist", a former member of Ulster Vanguard who "had the enthusiastic backing of the national front", and questioned why the UUP was "honouring" him.

At a 2021 commemoration of his killing (and that of fellow civilian Kenneth Campbell in the same attack), widow Norah Bradford said that her focus was not on achieving criminal convictions for the crime.

She said: “At this point it’s not a priority for me. I leave that to God.

“Nothing gets past God, he knows exactly who was involved and ultimately they will have to face him.

“I can let that all go. I don’t have to carry it. And that is a message of hope.”

• Note: This article originally said Mr Clarke had referred to the commemoration of IRA victim Edgar Graham. This was in error – in fact he had been referring to fellow UUP man Rev Bradford, shot dead two years earlier by the IRA.

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