Doug Beattie endorsed as new Ulster Unionist Party leader

Doug Beattie succeeds Steve Aiken as Ulster Unionist leader

Doug Beattie has said his management style may be "rough around the edges" after being ratified as the new Ulster Unionist Party leader.

Members of the party met virtually on Thursday evening to confirm Mr Beattie as successor to Steve Aiken, who stepped down earlier this month.

Afterwards Mr Beattie said: "I guess we all think we bring something unique to a political party.

"I'm no different. I articulate myself in a different, particular way."

He added: "My management and leadership styles are very different.

"I'm a little bit rough around the edges. I think people like that rough around the edges.

"So, there's a manner in which I could help engage. Why is that important? Because if I can engage, then I can tell people what our policies are."

Mr Beattie said the UUP was "about bringing people together, making this the best part of the United Kingdom that we possibly can, and trying to forge and create a union of people, where people are happy to say 'I live in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom'".

Earlier this month, Mr 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.

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

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

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Danny Kennedy, UUP chairman, said the ratification of Mr Beattie took place "at the conclusion of a very positive meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council this evening".

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

Doug Beattie and UUP chairman Danny Kennedy stand outside the party's headquarters ahead of a virtual meeting to endorse the new leader

He said that while constitutional issues would be important, his focus would be on bread-and-butter issues such as the health service, employment and poverty.

"We have people who are dying on waiting lists. We have people who are sick on waiting lists, we have people who are in poverty," Mr Beattie said.

"We have people who haven't got a job or have just lost their job. We have huge mental health issues and wellbeing issues.

"They're really important as well, if not more so."

Mr Beattie is the third new leader of the Ulster Unionists since 2017, and the fifth in a decade.

The 55-year-old Upper Bann member of the Northern Ireland Assembly had been named as a potential leader in 2017 and 2019 - both times he opted not to run and supported Robin Swann and Mr Aiken respectively.

He had then argued that a leadership contest would have been a "distraction" from the wider issues of Brexit and elections.

Throughout his military career he served in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Northern Ireland and was awarded a Military Cross for bravery during operations to retake the town of Garmsir in Helmand, Afghanistan.

He was also at one point posted to Berlin, where he guarded Adolf Hitler's former deputy Rudolph Hess in Spandau Prison.