Interesting situation close to my home that might be worth keeping an eye on.
Politics in Northern Ireland. Last year two guys from the Ulster Unionist Party, Basil McCrea and John McCallister, quit the party, teamed up with Tina McKenzie, businesswoman and daughter of a former IRA man, and formed NI21, a new political party intended to appeal to liberal, non-sectarian unionists. McCrea is party leader, McCallister is deputy, McKenzie is chair.
On Wednesday we had elections for local councils and the European Parliament, and NI21 had candidates in both, but on the eve of the election the party imploded. At the centre of this is an allegation of unspecific sexual misconduct. A former party worker, Ashleigh Murray, has made a statement to the News Letter, a local paper with a strong Unionist slant, and done an interview with the BBC. The News Letter
put the statement to McCrea, and he said "you print any of this and I'll sue", so they haven't printed anything or named Murray as the alligator, other than reporting that allegations of a sexual nature have been made against him. The BBC have named Murray and run a snippet of the interview as part of a
report on the incident, but have not included the actual allegations, apparently on legal advice. The incident apparently happened last year, but Murray didn't mention it to anybody until just before the election, and she turns on the tears rather easily in the interview snippet. McKenzie, to her credit, has said we should reserve judgement until the facts are in, but has resigned as chair. McCallister, on the other hand, has been all over the media demanding McCrea resign and let him be leader.
My judgement is
very reserved on this. It's the easiest thing in the world to discredit a male political figure, especially one on the liberal/left end of the spectrum, with a well-timed allegation of sexual misconduct, and "sexual misconduct" has been redefined to mean almost anything from actual assault down to telling a slightly off-colour joke in mixed company. I think it's significant that neither the News Letter nor the BBC have repeated the actual allegations, but since they've ruined his political campaign and possibly career anyway, I doubt that'll save them from being sued if they turn out to be false.
