Doug Beattie deemed elected as new leader of Ulster Unionist Party

Decorated Army veteran Doug Beattie has been deemed elected as the new leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.

The Upper Bann Assembly member will succeed the resigning Steve Aiken in the role after it was confirmed he was the only candidate to put his name forward for election.

Party chair Danny Kennedy told a Stormont press conference that Mr Beattie, 55, was therefore deemed elected, subject to ratification by the party council on 27 May.

Mr Beattie, who served as a soldier for 34 years and was awarded the Military Cross for bravery in combat, promised a “progressive and unifying” agenda.

“I feel the weight of expectation on my shoulder, we are an historic party, we are the party of (Edward) Carson and (James) Craig, but we are a modernising party and we are a party that wants to reach out,” he said.

“And we will do that by reforming our message, by reforming our party structures, by bringing in more females and more young people, making our policies better understood and more crystallised and reaching to everybody to say that this is Northern Ireland, a place that we all want to live in, and let’s all work together to be able to live here.”

With the DUP having elected Edwin Poots as leader, a traditionalist with a conservative stance on many social issues, Mr Beattie was asked whether his election represented a significant realignment within the broader unionist family, potentially creating more clear blue water between his party and its main rival on policies.

He responded: "I've always seen clear blue water between the DUP and the Ulster Unionist Party on many different issues, certainly on our policies that we stand on - if that's widened, then it's widened, but that's good for unionism, because that gives unionism a choice and those disenfranchised unionists who may be more centre or centre right, will find a home with the Ulster Unionist Party, those who are maybe more to the right may well find a home with a DUP."

Mr Beattie added: "We are two distinct and very separate parties.< "I've always seen us as being different."

He said the "mammoth" challenge of dealing with Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol would be a priority.

The new UUP leader accused others of "lying" by claiming that Stormont could vote to get rid of the protocol in 2024.

Mr Beattie said MLAs could only vote to scrap certain parts of the Protocol and that then triggered a two-year process whereby those elements would be replaced with something else.

He made clear he would support a veterinary deal with the EU as a way to reduce the number of agri-food checks.

"The Protocol is damaging the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and as the Ulster Unionist Party we helped create the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, we're going to do all we can to stop it being damaged," he said.

"And if that means attacking the Protocol then we have to attack the Protocol.

"But we will also be honest with the electorate out there, I think people are spinning lies to try and garner party support and people are saying you can vote away the Protocol.

"You cannot vote away the Protocol. You can vote away articles five to 10 of the Protocol in four years' time.

"And then we go into a two-year period where those articles five to 10 are replaced with something else.

"But we're not a party who stands with our hands in our pocket sucking our teeth and saying 'oh we don't like the Protocol'.

"We have put up alternates to replace the Protocol. "We have said quite clearly that we would support an SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) treaty with the European Union.

"We will do anything that we could possibly do to either feed in to either minimise but most certainly get rid of the protocol."

Doug Beattie said relations within the Stormont Executive were currently not good, and it would "not take much to tip it over the edge", but he said he was focused on bringing stability to the institutions.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was amongst those to offer his congratulations to Mr Beattie: