TUV MLA suspended over comments deemed unreasonable

Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) assembly member Timothy Gaston has been suspended from the Northern Ireland Assembly for two days after telling the chairwoman of a Stormont committee to "breathe".

He made the remark during a tense exchange with Alliance Party assembly member Paula Bradshaw, who chairs the Executive Office scrutiny committee.

She complained to Stormont's standards commissioner, who found Gaston's comment was an "unreasonable and excessive personal attack".

Gaston said he apologised at the time for the "ill-judged" remark, but he rejected the watchdog's findings.

A motion proposing his suspension was debated on Monday, with 46 assembly members voting in favour, 31 against and one abstention.

The TUV MLA will be suspended from proceedings on Tuesday and the following Monday.

The commissioner's report was considered by the standards and privileges committee, which is made up of MLAs.

It is centred on a committee meeting on 23 October 2024.

Members were due to question First Minister Michelle O'Neill and the Sinn Féin deputy leader's attendance came at a time when her party was under pressure over its handling of several controversies.

They included job references provided for Michael McMonagle, a former press officer who was later convicted of child sex offences.

In a tense exchange, Gaston criticised Bradshaw over her holding a meeting with O'Neill prior to the public committee session.

He asked Bradshaw how she could "limit what members are going to ask", to which the Alliance MLA responded: "I haven't said I was going to limit.

"Did I say I was going to limit? Did I say I was going to limit? No, I didn't."

Gaston replied: "Take a step back. You're okay, you're okay. Breathe."

In December 2024, the TUV assembly member lodged a complaint against Bradshaw with the standards commissioner, who the following February determined it was "inadmissible".

Meanwhile Bradshaw submitted a complaint against Gaston.

In her investigation report, the then standards commissioner Melissa McCullough found he had breached the code of conduct for MLAs.

She said his "breathe" comment was "both unreasonable and excessive" and "may reasonably be perceived as condescending and patronising in tone".

The tone and context of Gaston's remark "remark undermined and disrespected the chair's authority in a manner that goes beyond acceptable parliamentary discourse", McCullough found, adding that it was her view it constituted "an unnecessary personal attack".

McCullough said it was "not merely a case of the accepted 'rough and tumble' of political life", but related to all MLAs treating each other "with courtesy and respect".

The commissioner also said the MLA had engaged in "persistent, repetitive undermining of the chair and committee protocols".

She said his questions to the first minister "clearly did not pertain" to the work of her office and Bradshaw was therefore "fully justified - and indeed obliged - to intervene".

The standards and privileges committee upheld the commissioner's findings and has proposed that Gaston is excluded from assembly proceedings for two sitting days.

Speaking at Stormont on Monday, TUV leader Jim Allister said the assembly "stooped to a new low" with its "witch hunt" against Gaston, and described the watchdog report as "farcical".

"He has been most effective, and the more effective he has been, the greater the determination to try and silence him," Allister said.

The MP also said he recently learned there were "police enquiries" taking place in relation to a complaint about Bradshaw and O'Neill's "pre-committee consultations".

Allister said the enquiries related to whether or not they could have amounted to "misfeasance in a public office".

He added it would be "wholly disproportionate and inappropriate" for the assembly to proceed with sanctions until enquiries are completed.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it "received correspondence concerning an allegation of misconduct in public office in October 2024" and that "enquiries remain ongoing".

Loyalist activist Jamie Bryson said he had made a complaint to the PSNI.

O'Neill said: "Like everyone else, I have only just become aware of this.

"The PSNI has not contacted me about it. I have no information beyond what has been reported publicly."

An Alliance spokesperson said the statements from TUV were "nothing more than misleading conjecture and distraction".

"Such commentary only further undermines standards in the assembly," a party spokesperson said in a statement.

"Only one MLA has been found in breach of the code of conduct in this case, and that is Timothy Gaston."

The spokesperson added: "No amount of gaslighting or spin from the TUV will change that fact."

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Gavin Robinson said his party would not support the proposed sanction.

The MP said that such complaints "stymie political discourse, democratic engagement and political participation".

"The idea that asking someone to 'breathe' should lead to political suffocation of an elected representative for two days is intolerable," he said.

In a statement the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) said the sanction process should be "paused" in light of the PSNI's enquiries.

Gaston said his comments were ill-judged but added that Bradshaw was "very arrogant" at the committee meeting and had become aggressive towards him.

"I reacted in a way that, in hindsight, I shouldn't have. I acknowledged it then, and I believed that that was the end of the matter," he said.

"Then, mysteriously, after my complaint against the chair of the council, once it was thrown out, then this was reintroduced as a problem."

In his earlier responses to the commissioner's investigation, Gaston rejected as "groundless" any suggestion his comment to Bradshaw was "misogynistic".

He described the report's findings as "neither fair nor proportionate" and warned they would "weaken scrutiny, not strengthen standards".

Gaston also described as "inconsistent" how his earlier complaint against Bradshaw was considered "inadmissible" by the commissioner on the basis that it related to her actions as a committee chairperson.

He pointed to a previous case in which the commissioner investigated an Ulster Unionist MLA over his conduct while chairing a committee meeting.

The standards committee said the two cases could be "differentiated" as Steve Aiken was arguably "not acting exclusively in his capacity as committee chairperson during the conduct in question".

However, the committee agreed to consider whether the code should be amended in future to remove any "potential ambiguity".