TUV table no confidence motion over Naomi Long's terrorist victims comments - but DUP brand move a 'stunt'

Last week Naomi Long said that some terrorist perpetrators can also be victims – and that she is not “incapable of empathy” with some involved in violence during the Troubles.

North Antrim MLA Timothy Gaston has called on the DUP and UUP to back his call for a motion of no confidence in the Alliance minister – citing a letter from the victim of an IRA terror attack.

Mr Gaston quoted Paul Tooms, whose father Ivan, 42 – a customs officer – was murdered by the IRA in his office in Warrenpoint in 1981.

In a letter, published in Monday’s News Letter, he said was “horrified” to hear Mrs Long “equate the actions of terrorists with the experience of innocent victims”.

Mr Gaston asked whether the DUP and UUP are “happy to sustain a Justice Minister who cannot grasp the difference between a victim and a victim-maker”.

“Act — or own it. In championing Stormont, you own a First Minister who said there was no alternative to IRA murder. You own an Irish Language Commissioner imposed on Unionists. You own a Justice Minister who equates terrorists with their victims”.

DUP Assembly Chief Whip Trevor Clarke told the News Letter: “As they struggled to defend their disgraceful stance on innocent victims, even Alliance would hardly have expected the TUV to come to their assistance.

“Rather than keep a focus on the Alliance Party and their policies, the TUV seem determined to shift attention away and to engineer an intra-unionist spat. Parties rightly should explain their policy position and the TUV should explain why they are not just campaigning to remove one Minister from office, but to see the Labour Party in full control of all decisions in NI and any local control removed. That’s the logical conclusion of the TUV’s campaign and their stunts only serve to highlight it.

The UUP has yet to respond on the matter.