We can’t repair damage by paramilitaries: UUP Doug Beattie won't be intimated by office attack

The Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie vowed he will not be intimated after an attack on his constituency office.

A concrete block was used to smash the window of his Portadown office.

Mr Beattie described the attack as "cowardly".

"We can repair a pane of glass, we can’t repair damage caused by paramilitaries," he told reporters on Monday afternoon.

He added: "The attack on my office overnight is one of the inevitable consequences I have been warning about.

"My primary concern is for the welfare of my staff and this was a cowardly attack on their workplace which provides a service to the people of Upper Bann.

“What it will not do is deter me from carrying out my democratic work or speaking out when I have genuine concerns. Attacking offices and attempting to intimidate politicians demonstrates the weakness of your argument if that is what you have to resort to.

He stressed his party remained resolute in getting the protocol replaced. "We have been expressing our consistent opposition to it since it was first mooted in October 2019," he said

"But where I differ with others is the way in which we approach that. I am a confident, positive unionist representing a party which will engage to bring about change. It is a political problem which will only be solved by finding a political solution. “We respect the right of anyone to legally and peacefully protest.

"However tensions are rising, with some spokespeople at anti-Protocol rallies openly calling for people to get angry and to raise the temperature.

"Blood and thunder rhetoric from a lectern will not help nor solve the Protocol problem. This is exactly what we need to avoid. We need to learn the lessons of the past. “If anyone thinks that they can intimidate me or the Ulster Unionist Party, they clearly don`t know me or understand the party I represent.” The attack came a day after Mr Beattie said his party would no longer be involved in anti-protocol rallies.

Mr Beattie said the rallies, voicing opposition to post-Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland, were "raising tensions" and had "become anti-Belfast agreement rallies”.

Police said the attack happened sometime between 8.30pm on Sunday and 8.30am on Monday and appealed for information.

The attack has been condemned.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said those behind the incident were "completely wrong" and that their actions "contribute nothing to their opposition to the protocol".

The Northern Ireland Protocol has been fiercely opposed by some loyalists and unionists as it has been perceived as weakening Northern Ireland’s position with the Union.