Allister Announces 'Alternative Ulster' Voice

An alternative Ulster unionist 'voice' is to be offered to Northern Ireland voters.

Targeting those opposed to the previously hard-line DUP's remarkable 'volte-face' on power sharing with Sinn Féin, members of existing unionist parties are being invited to join this new political movement.

Former DUP MEP Jim Allister has set up the party, called the Traditional Unionist Voice, (TUV) which rejects the current power-sharing arrangement at Stormont.

Mr Allister, who left the DUP in protest at the party's decision to share power with what he calls an unreconstructed Sinn Féin, and said thousands of grassroots unionists feel betrayed by the move.

He claimed branches of his new movement have been established in 12 of the 18 Westminster constituencies in the Province. TUV will, he said, occupy the ground wantonly abandoned by others for the sake of office.

"Tens of thousands of unionists feel sickened and deflated by the spectacle of IRA/Sinn Fein at the heart of our government, having been put there by those they trusted in the past.

"To them I say, you are not alone, ours is an honourable and legitimate view and together we can make it count," he said.

(BMcC)