Tory quits election race with blast at 'sectarian' politics

Mrs Davidson and two other Tories - Peter McCann in South Belfast and Deirdre Nelson in East Belfast - confirmed they were withdrawing their candidacy just a week after the Conservative shadow Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson facilitated a 'secret' meeting bwteen the Ulster Unionists and DUP in England. It was speculated that an electoral pact between the two unionist parties was discussed.

However Mrs Davidson said there were a number of issues behind her decision to pull out of the race.

Under the agreement between the UUP and Tories, each party was to put forward a nominee and a joint committee of the two parties would then sleect one to run under the UCUNF ticket.

Although Mrs Davidson had been selected by the Conservatives and Lady Daphne Trimble for the Ulster Unionists, there was still no decision on who would be the single candidate for the election which must take place by May this year.

"This is a personal decision based on a number of issues," explained Mrs Davidson. "We were concerned at a lack of progress being made towards candidate selection. Given the proximity of a general election we felt we were not being given enough time to run an effective campaign. The process is taking too long."

Mrs Davidson also said she was concerned that unionism in Northern Ireland was returning to 'sectarian' lines.

"I cannot roll back my principles," she continued. "I do not hear from established parties a clear non-sectarian message coming out that I feel I can sign up to.

"These are very serious times at the minute but this is too important to Northern Ireland and we need to get away from sectarian tit for tat politics."

She stressed that the Conservative Party had asked her not to withdraw from the selection process and added: "I personally hope the local Conservative Association will look to appoint another nominee to go forward in the process."

Mrs Davidson said she would not rule out running for election in the future and concluded: "I remain a very committed member of the Conservative Party."

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