Member's statement: Committee for the Executive Office — 27 May 2026: Witness Comments

Member's statement by Mr Timothy Gaston on 1 June 2026.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

1 June 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Committee for the Executive Office — 27 May 2026: Witness Comments

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5580812

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Last Wednesday, the Committee for the Executive Office hosted two panels as part of its evidence-gathering process on the race relations strategy. Members from both panels were highly political in the evidence that they presented to us. The second panel included Daniel Holder, a director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice. He made the outrageous statement that Northern Ireland needs to make contingency plans for the possibility of a Reform UK Government and branded the party leading the polls in the United Kingdom as far right. That showed such contempt for the views of millions of people right across our United Kingdom and, indeed, tens of thousands in this part of our UK. Those remarks were rightly challenged and called out by me and by other Committee members. However, the comments from a member on the first panel were even more telling as the radical left mask started to slip. The Bible tells us:

"for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."

In Wednesday's Committee, we had an example of that attitude of the heart coming to the surface through what was said, and I put it on record here today. I apologise to the House for using these terms, but Fidelma Fearon from Minority Ethnic Support Armagh was clearly picked up on the mic as saying:

"They are lucky that I did not get stuck into the bastard properly."

I am pleased to say that the public have had their say in the court of appeal that is social media about the actions that took place at the Committee last Wednesday. It is noteworthy that, when asked about her language, Fidelma Fearon told 'The Irish News' that she would not apologise. In the House of Commons, the verbal abuse of a Member of Parliament is categorised as a contempt of Parliament. Our Standing Orders oddly make no mention of contempt of the Assembly, and something needs to be done urgently to address that serious defect. Ms Fearon's group is in receipt of tens of thousands of pounds of public funding, including generous sums from the Executive Office, and it was a member of the Executive Office Committee whom she decided to abuse. We know that, under section 45 of the 1998 Act, the Assembly has the power to compel witnesses to attend.

Ms Fearon should be required to re-attend the Committee and learn some manners.

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

Assessment

Flagged Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers

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 23 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The statement responds to evidence sessions on the race relations strategy without engaging with the strategy itself. It uses them to defend a political party against being called "far right", to cast the witnesses as "highly political" and their views as the "radical left mask" slipping, and to point to the "tens of thousands of pounds of public funding" received by a minority ethnic support group. The complaint about a witness's abusive remark and the proposal on contempt of the Assembly are genuine procedural points. But they sit inside a framing that discredits race-equality advocates as a political camp, and the demand that the witness "learn some manners" escalates the row beyond the procedural issue.

Public interest or divisiveness

There is a real public-interest element: a witness appears to have verbally abused a committee member, and asking whether Standing Orders should cover contempt of the Assembly is a legitimate question. However, much of the statement keeps a political and identity row going. It presents criticism of a party as "contempt" for millions, attributes an "attitude of the heart" to race-relations campaigners, and links their public funding to the incident. Together these work to undermine minority-ethnic advocacy in public life.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:42 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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