The Ulster Unionist Party has condemned last night’s violence at Belfast City Hall, but also questions whether the Councillors who voted against the flying of the Union Flag 365 days a year understand the dangers of history repeating itself.

Party Leader, Mike Nesbitt MLA, said: “Firstly, we are clear that no one should have been attacked or injured last night, no property should have been damaged, and no illegality should be tolerated. Attacking police officers is wrong, fullstop.

But it is also wrong to continue to make the unionist people of Belfast feel that they are to be treated as a minority whose heritage and values are to be suppressed.

We now have a position where the majority of councillors who sit on Belfast City Council are no longer unionist. We have the proposed Review of Public Administration (RPA) that will dramatically revise the political balance on the ground, and we have many people, including those who took to the streets last night, who feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are to be treated as a second-class minority by having their traditions disrespected.

It is time the DUP explained why they not only supported, but actively promoted the gerrymandering of the new Belfast boundaries, which see the ridiculous position where Ballybeen in east Belfast will become part of Lisburn, an outcome senior DUP politicians lobbied hard to achieve.

What we saw last night was wrong on two levels. The violence was wrong, but so were the circumstances that gave rise to the street protest, and that is the political failure to agree a Shared Future. For the Ulster Unionist Party that means agreeing a way of working and living together that affords mutual respect. It is not about everyone becoming the human form of beige and abandoning our history, our heritage and the values that for unionists are embedded in the Union Flag.”