Mike Nesbitt: I was burned out of office by unionist sectarianism

Mike Nesbitt compared unionism to a frog sitting in a pot of water unaware of the threat to its life as the temperature gradually rises.

Mr Nesbitt said unionists needed to stop “disregarding the importance of human rights” and start thinking about how to tackle sectarianism.

The Strangford Assembly member was addressing the launch of a new report on sectarianism at Parliament Buildings in Stormont.

Mr Nesbitt quit as UUP leader in 2017 after a disappointing Assembly election. Some attributed his party’s poor performance to Mr Nesbitt’s campaign pledge to transfer his second preference vote to the nationalist SDLP.

“A couple of years ago when I was leader of the Unionist party and I said I would give a preference vote in the 2017 election to the SDLP and, figuratively, I was burned out of office by some rather sectarian reaction from the unionist community. My message, completely thinking from the unionist perspective, to unionists is wake-up.”

Mr Nesbitt said the old reality of a Protestant majority in Northern Ireland was gone.

He said the Province was no longer binary Protestant or Catholic – but was instead an increasingly diverse society.