WATCH: UUP leader Doug Beattie says Jeffrey Donaldson meeting was to discuss switching parties

By Jonathan McCambridge and David Young, PA

Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie has said a meeting he held with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson last year was to discuss the Lagan Valley MP switching parties.

Sir Jeffrey, now the DUP leader, has denied claims that he considered joining the UUP after he lost out in an initial leadership battle with Edwin Poots.

But Mr Beattie has now confirmed that he initiated the meeting last June and that he understood it was organised to discuss Sir Jeffrey joining his party.

Sir Jeffrey last week said he was approached by the UUP on the issue but insists he never had any intention of rejoining a party he left in 2003.

He has portrayed the exchange with the UUP as more of a conversation on achieving greater co-operation among unionists in Northern Ireland.

Weeks later he became DUP leader after Mr Poots was forced out following an internal party coup.

But Mr Beattie told the BBC Nolan Show that at the time he initiated the meeting, he sensed that Sir Jeffrey was not happy with the direction of the DUP under Mr Poots.

He said: “I sent a message to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson saying he would be welcome to come back to the Ulster Unionist Party, I sent him that message and from that we organised a time, a date, a place, and we met up.”

WATCH: Earlier today UUP leader Doug Beattie spoke to reporters over claims that he set up a meeting with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson to discuss the current DUP leader re-joining the UUP. pic.twitter.com/TLxasT2lcE

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He added: “Yes indeed I was the person who initiated to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson to ask him did he want to come and have a chat because I would welcome him back into the Ulster Unionist Party, and he did not say no and we met up and we discussed it.

“There was absolutely conversations about how do we promote the brand of unionism which I was trying to promote. There was no conversation about parties joining together or parties working together or indeed forming a new party. This was about my messaging.

“The invite was to come and think about coming to consider rejoining the Ulster Unionist Party so that is what the conversation was about.

“Everything we talked about was in that vein.

“At that time we were having a conversation because my sense was he was not happy.”

Sir Jeffrey has said that he “politely declined” an invitation from the UUP to rejoin.

DUP Economy Minister Gordon Lyons described talk of his party leader rejoining his former party was “tittle tattle”.

Mr Lyons said he and other DUP members he had spoken to accept Sir Jeffrey’s insistence that he never had any intention of joining the Ulster Unionists.

“I don’t think that the public are interested in what happened a year ago or who said what, even now,” he told reporters in Belfast on Monday.

“They’re looking to the future. If you listen to what people are actually concerned about right now, it’s the future, it’s about cost of living, it’s about what comes next for them. That’s where our focus is right now as well.”

Asked if he had contacted Sir Jeffrey to seek assurances on the issue, Mr Lyons added:

“No, I’ve had no need to raise those concerns. Jeffrey Donaldson set out his position and I can tell you speaking to other people in my party, they accept that as well and want us to actually focus on what comes next rather than tittle tattle from the last year.”

Asked whether he would publish text exchanges with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson if his version of events was disputed, Doug Beattie said his integrity was important to him.

“If somebody wants to challenge me on my integrity, then I will do everything I have to do to make sure people know that I am an open and honest politician who is standing here giving the version of the truth, which is the truth,” he said.

While he said he did not plan to publish the texts, he added:

“But if people are going to challenge me, then I will do everything that I need to do to make sure that they understand that I am an honest politician and I am telling the truth.”

He said the unexpected end of Edwin Poots’s tenure as DUP leader meant the engagement with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson went no further.

“Had he not become the leader of the DUP, I’ve got absolutely no idea where it would have went,” he added.

“But I’m clear on this – that I’m the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, I was only ever promoting the Ulster Unionist Party, there was no discussions about a new party, there was no discussions about unity, there was no discussions about promoting any other party.

“Everything I did was about promoting the values, the standards, the vision of the Ulster Unionist Party and nothing more.”

Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie during a press conference today in Tandragee, Co. Armagh, following the controversy around Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's engagement with the UUP leader