TUV Leader Jim Allister has intervened in the row between the DUP and UUP over the marginal seats of South Belfast and Fermanagh & South Tyrone to call for all-party unionist support for a single non-party candidate in each constituency. Believing party candidates will never command enough support to win and that inter-unionist competition will gift the seats to the nationalist/republican incumbents, Jim Allister is calling for an agreed non-party candidate from unionist civic society in each seat. 

In a statement the TUV Leader said:-

 “It is becoming increasingly clear that DUP and UUP egos and pride will again subject the people of South Belfast and Fermanagh & South Tyrone to nationalist/republican representation, or non-representation, in Parliament.

 “I, therefore, repeat my call for both parties to step back and recognise that their mutual  animus and grandstanding will again lose both of these seats and that the route to a unionist victory is through finding in each constituency a non-party standard-bearer who can unite the supporters of all three unionist parties. I have no doubt that within unionist civic society such unifying figures exist.

 “Winning seats like South Belfast and Fermanagh & South Tyrone should not be about accumulating party trophies, it should be about ridding them of their present incumbents. Only a genuinely non-party figure in each constituency is likely to do so. Retaking these seats would be a much needed boost for all of unionism, but it can’t be done so long as party interests are put first.

“So, now is the time for magnanimity and a serious search for candidates for victory, not mere positioning so that one party or other can better its stance in the blame game: that is really what is going on at present.  So I challenge the leaders of both the DUP and UUP to join with me in declaring a willingness to find and support mutually acceptable winners for these constituencies, and to be willing to suppress party ambition in pursuit of that search. I don’t think that is too much to ask.”