Tom Elliott - Controversies

Controversies

Elliott caused controversy while campaigning for the UUP leadership when he stated publicly that he wouldn't attend gay pride parades or Gaelic Athletic Association matches.

After he was elected in the 2011 Assembly election, in his victory speech in Omagh Elliott referred to the Irish tricolour as a "flag of a foreign nation". When he started to receive heckles from the audience, he went on to describe nationalist supporters holding Irish flags as "the scum of Sinn Féin" causing the Independent Unionist MLA David McClarty to quip that he "made Jim Allister sound like the Dalai Lama'. Although initially refusing to retract his comments he later issued an apology.