Doug Beattie is elected new leader of Ulster Unionist Party

Upper Bann MLA Doug Beattie has been elected as the new leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP).

Mr Beattie was the only candidate to run for the top post in the party.

It comes after Steve Aiken announced his decision to step down as party leader after less than two years in the job. He said he had taken the party as far as he could.

Nominations for the leadership closed at 12:00 BST on Monday.

The election has yet to be formally ratified by a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Party council at the end of May.

The party - once led by Good Friday peace agreement negotiator and former NI first minister, David Trimble - lost its Westminster seats in the 2017 general election.

• Doug Beattie: Who is the new leader of the UUP?

At a press conference in Stormont on Monday, Mr Beattie said he felt "the weight of expectation on my shoulder".

He said the party was a modernising one that wants to reach out by reforming its structures, bringing in more women and young people.

'Instability'

"We know there are some mammoth tasks ahead of us, not least the Northern Ireland Protocol and we will look to see how we can address that.

"All of these things will feed into a degree of instability which is affecting Northern Ireland."

UUP chairman Danny Kennedy (left) congratulates Mr Beattie on Monday

But he said the UUP would "stay stable".

Mr Beattie, a retired Army captain who was first elected as an MLA in 2016, said he was the right person to "rekindle the fortunes" of the UUP and give a clear vision for the future.

He said the Northern Ireland Executive and the assembly is "fractious" and it "won't take much to tip it over the edge".

Mr Beattie told BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programe that the Northern Ireland Protocol, the post-Brexit arrangement for Northern Ireland which places a border in the Irish Sea, is here to stay and cannot be voted away.

He reiterated that it is damaging for the Good Friday Agreement.

He said he wanted a solution that did not place a hard border either in the Irish Sea or on the island of Ireland.

Doug Beattie's decades of experience on the military front line may be about to come in handy on the battlefield of Stormont politics.

One of the tasks he faces is getting rid of the Brexit protocol, which may require him to work closely with the incoming DUP leader Edwin Poots.

As a liberal Ulster Unionist, Doug Beattie is conscious that his brand of politics may not win over everyone in his party.

The Upper Bann MLA wants to revive and reform the party's fortunes, but can he now go where his predecessors have failed and convince Ulster Unionist members to back him and any changes he hopes to make?

"We will look for policies that are progressive, we will look for a union of people over the coming months and years and we will make Northern Ireland work," he said.

His election comes just days after Northern Ireland's largest unionist party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), elected Edwin Poots and Paula Bradley as the new leader and deputy leader.

They will replace Arlene Foster and Lord Dodds. Mr Beattie said there was "clear blue water" between the DUP and UUP.

"That's good for unionism and that gives unionism a choice," he said.

"Those disenfranchised unionists, who are more centre or centre right, may find a home in the Ulster Unionist Party."