Debate contribution: Exclusion of the Minister of Education from Office

Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on 10 November 2025.

MLA

Mr Robbie Butler

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

10 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Assembly Business

Heading

Exclusion of the Minister of Education from Office

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5224196

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We are told that the motion was tabled because the Minister of Education failed

"to uphold and support the rule of law"

and breached the ministerial code of conduct. In truth, the motion tells us far more about the state of politics in Northern Ireland than it ever will about Paul Givan or the visit to Israel. It is performative and partisan. Worse than that, it misleads the public. Let us call it what it is: political theatre dressed up as moral outrage.

We in the Ulster Unionist Party, like the people of Northern Ireland, are horrified by the horrors, the death and the destruction in Israel and Gaza. We recognise that, across Northern Ireland, people hold a range of views on Israel and Palestine, and we note that some have taken issue with the Education Minister's actions. Those who tabled the motion of no confidence, however, should be honest with the people of Northern Ireland. It is politicking, pure and simple, and it will achieve little but the further entrenchment of views and attitudes across our society. I have said it before, and I will say it again: a Palestinian child and an Israeli child are of equal value. Their lives, education and future are all of equal worth. That simple truth should shape how we speak and act, especially when the world is torn by war and grief, particularly in the Middle East, but those driving the motion have chosen something different. They have chosen spectacle over substance and condemnation over consistency. I know that some who have signed the motion have done so from a place of genuine conviction. Their moral compass is far clearer than that of others who have attached themselves to it. Perhaps inadvertently, however, they have allowed themselves to be drawn into an alliance with those who would spin sincerity into spectacle and turn even principle into a prop for politics. The author of the motion, Gerry Carroll of People Before Profit, in an attempt to outdo Sinn Féin, accuses the Minister of failing to uphold the rule of law, yet, on 7 October 2023, as Hamas murdered, raped and butchered hundreds of innocent men, women and children, Mr Carroll posted on X, "Victory to the Palestinian Resistance". That post is still there today. That is hypocrisy at full throttle. It tells us all that we need to know about the double standards at play. We then have Sinn Féin, eager to reclaim the territory staked out by Mr Carroll. Some of its members have met Hamas representatives. Those individuals openly boast of their involvement in acts of terror, yet Sinn Féin now presumes to lecture others on moral responsibility and the rule of law. Once again, it is a case of the mote and the beam. Sinn Féin is quick to spot the fault in someone else but blind to the failings in its own ranks. When Sinn Féin Ministers attended the Bobby Storey funeral during a time of strict COVID restrictions, the rules were ignored. Public faith in government was shattered, yet there was no motion of exclusion, no 12-month sanction and no humility. There was only deflection. The people who justified that now claim to be guardians of the ministerial code. This is not about the rule of law but about the rule of convenience. The rules apply to others when it suits but never to Sinn Féin. The Minister of Education has informed the House that his visit to Israel has already been reviewed by his Department's permanent secretary and found to have followed proper procedure. I am sure that, for full transparency, the Minister will ensure that that review is published. I also understand that the head of the Civil Service is examining the wider handling of the visit. That is the correct and proportionate process for addressing such matters, not the kind of political show trial that we see here today. Until those reviews conclude, the Assembly should resist the temptation to play judge and jury for the sake of a headline. The motion drags the Assembly into performative outrage while our schools cry out for resources, our children wait months for special needs assessments and our teachers struggle to find basic classroom materials. If those who tabled the motion cared as much about our own children as they claim to care about the conflict in the Middle East, they would channel their energy into education reform and mental health support instead of political grandstanding. Northern Ireland faces deep and seemingly intractable problems, but I can think of few moments that illustrate our dysfunction more clearly than the motion. When hypocrisy outweighs humanity, theatre replaces truth and the beam closes our eyes to our own failings, we all lose sense of what really matters. The Ulster Unionist Party will not support the motion. We see it as performative, divisive and deeply hypocritical. It does no justice to the innocent victims who have lost their lives in Israel and Gaza. Until we learn to remove the beam from our own eye, we will remain blind to a better future for all our children — Palestinian, Israeli and Northern Irish alike — and —

— they richly deserve it.

870 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Not flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The contribution opposes a motion to exclude a minister over a visit to Israel. It argues the motion is "performative and partisan" and that existing reviews by the permanent secretary and the head of the Civil Service are "the correct and proportionate process". Its sharpest passages accuse two parties of hypocrisy, citing a social media post, meetings with Hamas representatives and a funeral held during COVID restrictions. These are criticisms of specific conduct and records rather than an identity-based attack on a community, and the text does not map the Middle East conflict onto communities here, insisting instead that "a Palestinian child and an Israeli child are of equal value".

Public interest or divisiveness

The speech engages with the substance of the motion: whether due process has been followed, and the point that Assembly time would be better spent on schools, special needs assessments and mental health support. It also explicitly opposes the entrenchment of division over a foreign conflict. Against that, a large part of it is pointed party-political point-scoring, including the familiar funeral row and the claim that "the rules apply to others when it suits but never to" one party. That partisan element is substantial, though it targets parties' conduct rather than a community or identity.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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