Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“As a Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt, I fear, is losing his way. He got it badly wrong on Brexit – something which many former UUP voters have raised with me on the doors – and now being, at best, equivocal on voting transfers within the unionist family. Giving preferences to nationalists before unionists should not be the business of the leader of a party committed to maintaining the Union.
“He wants an alternative government in Stormont, but is blindly wedded to the Belfast Agreement structure of mandatory coalition which means, even if he won the election, DUP and Sinn Fein would still “as of right” be entitled to be in the government. Failing to jettison failed mandatory coalition in favour of that which can provide alternative government, namely voluntary coalition, is a fatal flaw in his approach.
“Happily traditional unionists who hitherto have voted UUP have an emphatic alternative in TUV, which knows where it stands on all these issues.”