Former party colleagues call on Carlisle to resign from ‘UUP seat’

Mr Dillon insisted the Lisburn South seat belonged to the Ulster Unionist Party, adding that Mr Carlisle had “obviously jumped before he was pushed.

“He can’t say it was because of the workload,” said Mr Dillon. “He only turned up on time to one group meeting since the election and didn’t turn up at all to the last one.

“I am calling on him to resign his seat immediately,” he continued. “It is an Ulster Unionist seat, canvassed for by the Ulster Unionist team. That was our seat. I am surprised the party let him stand at all as he wasn’t even a party member until a month before the election.

“I wish the DUP well with him,” he added.

His party colleague Councillor Ronnie Crawford also criticised Mr Carlisle.

“I would like to clarify the background to Alan Carlisle’s defection from the Party,” said Mr Crawford. “He failed to turn up for a party pre-council meeting last Tuesday when the rest of our members agreed we would resist attempts by the DUP to overturn a decision by a council committee. Each vote was absolutely crucial and our group decided to impose a three line whip.

“Councillor Carlisle arrived late and said he had made an agreement with the DUP that he would vote with them. He did this without any discussion whatsoever with his party colleagues. In any case the vote was not taken and I am enormously disappointed that Councillor Carlisle has betrayed the UUP voters of Lisburn South who elected him as an Ulster Unionist and those of us who took time out of our own campaign to help him with his, including his running mate Tim Mitchell who persuaded him not to withdraw his nomination at the last moment.

“He is the one who has introduced division by doing deals with the party that opposed him in May and he will find that behaviour will not be tolerated in the DUP,” he concluded.