Tracey Magee: UUP deciding today on who real Doug Beattie is but time is against them

For a long time now it’s been recognised that social media has revolutionised politics - for good and bad.

Parties can now harness the power of social media to get their message out and politicians can cut through traditional media to speak directly to voters.

But as Doug Beattie has discovered to his cost, it is fraught with danger.

It may only take a moment to send a tweet, but once sent, it never goes away.

That’s unless you’re savvy enough to wipe clean your social media trail before going into politics.

The Ulster Unionist leader and former soldier was not and he’s now fighting for his political life.

It blew up out of nowhere.

On Saturday night Mr Beattie - no doubt in great form after a Belfast Telegraph/LucidTalk showed he was the most popular political leader in Northern Ireland - posted a joke on Twitter referring to the wife of a political rival Edwin Poots.

He deleted it once he realised how much offence it had caused saying it was “an attempt at humour”. Since then he has apologised repeatedly.

But his troubles had just begun. It led to a trawl through previous tweets dating back to 2012 which revealed a series of derogatory messages about women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues. Unlike other politicians Mr Beattie has decided to front up. He has done a series of interviews taking full responsibility for the tweets, admitting they were pretty horrific” and he is “deeply ashamed". He admits he’s been rocked by the controversy saying it has left him “broken”. Mr Beattie says he will speak to his MLAs and party officers today saying he will go if they feel he should step down. I’ve been speaking to senior Ulster Unionists, and so far it appears they’re still supportive. No-one is trying to defend him. They recognise his mistakes are huge and politically devastating, but they point to the fact that he has not run away.

One compared him to Boris Johnson who is also facing potential political oblivion over the Partygate scandal. “It’s chalk and cheese,” they said “Doug hasn’t run away. He’s facing up to his mistakes. You can’t say that about Boris.” Another told me: “It may sound strange, given what this is about, but honour and integrity are so important to him. Personal responsibility is a big thing for him.” Much has been made of the fact that the tweets date back to a decade ago when he had just returned from the harsh world of combat. However, that defence does not hold up for the Poots tweet on Saturday or the fact that he did not appear at first to realise why it was so inappropriate. Also there’s a hard political reality at play here too. Time is not on the Ulster Unionist Party’s side. Ten weeks from a potentially seismic Assembly election the party’s electoral fortunes have been dealt a massive blow. The choice now facing the party is whether they continue on with Beattie or look about for what will be their fifth leader in just four years. The disappointment in the party is palpable. After years in the wilderness the party had begun to dream about a resurgence. Much had been made of the “Beattie bounce”. It’s all gone flat today. Ultimately the party must decide who is the real Doug Beattie? Is he the liberal moderniser or a man so steeped in misogyny and prejudice that he doesn’t even recognise it? Today the party will decide, in a matter of weeks it will be the voters' turn.

• Tracey Magee gives her assessment of the day's developments after the UUP gave its backing for Doug Beattie to stay in his role as party leader.