Steve Aiken: ‘UUP will continue to oppose Irish language act but will keep freedom of conscience on matters such as abortion’

Steve Aiken has said that under his leadership his party will continue to oppose an Irish language act but support the right of representatives to vote according to their conscience on moral and social questions.

Pressed on whether the UUP could accept such language legislation if it was happy with its contents, Steve Aiken said: “No. I think it [an Irish language act] has been made a stumbling block; we didn’t put the road blocks down there....there is no support anywhere across Ulster Unionism for an Irish language act and I can’t see; I haven’t seen anything or heard anything to change my opinion on that.”

Mr Aiken said that about two and a half years ago he had spoken to Sinn Fein’s Máirtín Ó Muilleoir and asked “what is this insistence that you have a language commissioner?”.

Mr Aiken said that the response had been: “Steve, look, here’s the situation: Agree to the act and then we’ll discuss what’s in it.”

The incoming UUP leader said that at that moment “I realised that this isn’t about language; this is about a tactic which is being used by Sinn Fein to create a weaponisation of culture”.

Mr Aiken said that his party was “not against the Irish language in any way”, having agreed as part of the 1998 Belfast Agreement to set up Irish language and Ulster Scots bodies and other Irish language funding.

Mr Aiken also said that he would “absolutely not” soften his party’s opposition to the Stormont House Agreement on legacy and its wider opposition to what it sees as unfair attempts to persecute former members of the security forces who served during the Troubles.

“Our line is very clear — we will not allow the re-writing of history. I cannot understand how Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and Emma Little-Pengelly espoused the Historical Investigation Unit (HIU) and what they’re trying to do, particularly within the HIU the description of misconduct.

“It just becomes a free-for-all on our brave servicemen, servicewomen, policemen, policewomen, prison officers, whatever it is, who held the line.”

He said that “at the moment there is a battle for the narratives”.

Mr Aiken said that he would work with individual DUP members who he believes “have got the Union and Union values at heart”. He said that privately “many members of the DUP are concerned at the direction their party is taking”.

When asked if the UUP would re-join a DUP-Sinn Féin-led Stormont Executive if it is resurrected or again opt for Opposition, Mr Aiken was noncommittal.

He said that there needed to be a “sustainable” administration and that there had to be an end to practices such as civil servants not taking minutes lest politically embarrassing material be recorded.

However, Mr Aiken appeared to indicate a preference for returning to government — with what would be a single minister — if those issues were addressed.

He said: “We can’t be saying time and time again ‘we need to fix education, we need to deal with the climate emergency, we need to get [health reform] done’ — we can’t keep saying that if we’re not willing to go in and try and fix it. However, there’s no point going in if the mechanism, the machine, isn’t changed because at the moment it’s just going to be back to the same old bad behaviours.”

Mr Aiken also committed to maintaining the UUP’s rule which allows its members to vote in line with their conscience on matters such as abortion.

He said: “Our position on conscience is not going to change in the Ulster Unionist Party. I’d be a hypocrite if I did [change it] because quite frankly I wouldn’t have been in the party if we didn’t have that position of conscience.”

However, Mr Aiken said that as leader he would be “making it abundantly clear that I fully support marriage equality and that on the issue of women’s rights, particularly when it comes to fatal foetal abnormality or crime against women, I [support ability to have abortion]...but when it comes to the 27-week position and the rest of it, I’m very uncomfortable with that so I would be interested to see which way the legislation would be shaped.”

• Click here for the first part to the interview

• Click here for the second part to the interview