Responding to a press statement where Ulster Unionists erroneously claimed the Antrim Council Alliance Group had backed an Ulster Unionist candidate for Deputy Mayor, the Castlereagh Councillor stated: “In each an every case where a non-Ulster Unionist candidate for Mayor or Deputy Mayor existed, Alliance backed that candidate — and that includes Antrim.
“It is absolute rubbish to suggest the Alliance group in Antrim backed an Ulster Unionist Deputy Mayor. A member of the Alliance group in fact proposed an Independent SDLP alternative.
“The Ulster Unionists are simply getting pettier and pettier in their defence of a purely tactical manoeuvre in the Assembly based purely on self-interest rather than the greater good.
“It is time they took the advice of their own MP, admitted their error, and broke the link.”
ENDS