Speech by TUV Bannside council candidate Anna Henry.
For those of you who don’t know my name is Anna Henry, I am 21 years of age and I was born and brought up on the outskirts of Cullybackey. I went to Cambridge House Grammar School and currently I am studying at Ulster University where I am studying business.
I was brought up in a DUP household, in fact it’s no secret my father is an ex DUP councillor who stood down in 2019. If he were at this conference today, which he’s not by the way, not because he doesn’t want to be here but because he has a condition which prevents him from being present, he would tell you himself that he declared his intentions at the end of 2018 of not standing again for re-election. If anyone wants to know his reasons check the newsletter report from January 2019 and you will get the whole background story.
A wee bit about my education; as I said earlier I studied at Cambridge House, one of the things I was interested in and wanted to study was politics. Now could you believe that in a place like Ballymena the only school that would accept me to study A-level politics was St Louis Grammar? You can imagine what it was like. There I am coming from a predominately unionist school and going to study politics in a predominantly nationalist school. To make it better my teacher was, and is, an SDLP candidate. I want you to picture the scene – a young 16 year old Unionist walking into a predominately nationalist school hoping to learn politics from an SDLP teacher.
There is one thing I must say – the school, the teachers and the principal treated me with the upmost respect. But some of the other students were challenging to say the least. I do want to pay tribute to the teacher, she tried her best to be fair but we will leave it at that.
As you can imagine I was a lone voice in that classroom, didn’t feel good but me being me I stood my ground, put my point forward and I let no one walk over me. Members of this conference does that remind you of anyone else? I refer of course to our own party leader who is as we all know the lone voice in Stormont. Hopefully that won’t last for long.
You know folks I can recall my father speaking when Mr Allister was first elected as a TUV MLA and his comment was along the lines of he was going to be a thorn in the side of those already in Stormont. He has been that ladies and gentlemen. He took a stand and he has never faltered. Someone with moral fibre, with principles and those principles have never changed.
Can I just add a wee bit now about the principles, the values of the TUV and how they have come down the line? I’m sure most of us here can recall a couple of years ago when there was issues within the hierarchy of Mid and East Antrim Borough council. It is no secret that this was all brought to light by none other than our TUV councillors and in particular Cllr Gaston.
I find somethings very important in life and the things that I find important are the things that the TUV are currently upholding for one the Union, transparency and accountability, fairness for all and respect for our veterans and in particular those who have suffered at the hands of terrorists, be those wounds either physical or mental. Of course I do not for one moment forget our young service personnel who are fighting for the crown in foreign fields. I give them my respect.
One of the main questions I get asked is, ‘Why am I running for the TUV?’ The answer is really quite simple. TUV since its formation has not dropped any of its values. I alluded earlier to how one man, our party leader still stands alone in Stormont and doesn’t falter. I alluded to how our councillors stood firm within Mid and East Antrim Council. I want to be a member of a party with values, standards with policies and who are principled unlike other parties like the one who agreed to release terrorists back onto our streets, or like another one who agreed to the removal of the Union flag and whose elected representative Mr Honeyford claimed and I quote “Unionists are bred to hate Catholics more than corruption”.
Parties such as these I do not ever want to be a member of. For me there is one party – TUV.
I want to thank the members and officers of this party for allowing me, a young female to stand on the values and principles of this party.