‘I think my campaign was strong’ – Diana Armstrong

DIANA Armstrong said she and the Ulster Unionist Party will ‘learn’ from a disappointing result in the Westminster election, which saw the Fermanagh councillor finish over 4,000 votes behind Pat Cullen.

In what’s typically one of the closest and tightest seats in the UK, Sinn Féin and their candidate, Pat Cullen, romped to a landslide victory in the early hours of Friday morning, with a 4,571 vote majority.

After speaking to members of her party at Meadowbank Sports Arena in Magherafelt, Ms Armstrong said that the early tallies left her feeling ‘quietly confident’, before Sinn Féin pulled clear.

“I knew from the outset that this was going to be a real challenge because we were facing the new boundaries within Fermanagh and South Tyrone,” Ms Armstrong said.

“I really attacked it with my team, feeling that we could win the seat and unfortunately it didn’t go that way.

“For my first attempt at Westminster, I think my campaign was strong.”

When the Fermanagh and South Tyrone residents went to the polls back in 2019, just 57 votes separated Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew and UUP’s Tom Elliott.

Now, having seen the gap widen significantly between the parties, Ms Armstrong, who is a daughter of former UUP leader Harry West, said that the party will learn from the experience.

“I think it’s important that everybody learns from every campaign,” said Ms Armstrong.

“Out meeting people was really engaging, meeting people in the streets and businesses.

“My portfolio is wide; it’s not just one topic. I’m talking about the industry, economy, healthcare, education, people’s lives, the cost of living – all of those things are what I’m doing in my every day job.”

In the lead-up to the UK General Election, Ms Armstrong had called on Sinn Féin’s Pat Cullen to condemn previous IRA attacks and atrocities, including the 1987 Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen.

While she acknowledged that she would ‘welcome’ working with the new Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP, she reiterated her calls for Ms Cullen to speak out on the IRA’s actions.

“I would appeal to her to at least try to recognise the pains that have been revisited in recent weeks,” Ms Armstrong said.

“Many people I spoke to in recent weeks expressed their despair that, in 2024, some people running for senior elected office will not bring themselves to even acknowledge the loss and horrors of terrorist acts.”

While six candidates ran altogether in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, it was very much a two-person battle between Sinn Féin’s Cullen and the UUP’s Armstrong.

Alliance Party candidate, Eddie Roofe, finished third on 2,420 votes.

His party’s total was 230 votes less than Matthew Beaumont’s 2,650 back in 2019.

The SDLP suffered a significant fall in their vote. Their candidate, Paul Blake, finished up on 2,386, which was over 1,000 votes less than what Adam Gannon polled in the previous Westminster election.

Meanwhile, Cross-Community Labour Alternative’s Gerry Cullen, who was competing in his seventh election, polled 624 votes. Carl Duffy from Aontú for Life, Unity, Economic Justice finished on 529 votes.