So much for the DUP's commitment to stop double jobbing

As the DUP announces that Arlene Foster is to stand for Westminster, the Ulster Unionist Party has questioned if she will stand down from her Council and Assembly seats with immediate effect.

Commenting on the announcement, UUP MLA Tom Elliott said; "A few weeks ago Peter Robinson went into media overload saying that the era of double-jobbing was coming to an end within the DUP."

"After failing to gain the first Unionist seat in the European election he then ordered a major reshuffle of his Executive and Committee Chairs, removing those MLAs who were also MPs…with a few exceptions."

"All this, yet last night he was endorsing the selection of Councillor, MLA and Minister Arlene Foster as the DUP's Westminster candidate for Fermanagh/South Tyrone. Surely this is somewhat contradictory.

"In line with Jeffrey Donaldson, Willie McCrea, David Simpson, Iris Robinson, Nigel Dodds and Gregory Campbell (all of whom are likely to be DUP candidates at the General Election) will Mrs. Foster now be reshuffled out of her ministerial duties? Or, like Sammy Wilson (who refused to be reshuffled), will she be given special dispensation by her Party Leader?

When she stood in Council by-election last year she promised that her Ministerial role would not hinder the service she provided in her local constituency, however he attendance at Council meetings including planning and development committee meetings would indicate otherwise."

"In addition to this, I also find it extraordinary that Mrs. Foster still trots out the line about unionist unity when everybody knows that it was the DUP's support for another unionist in Fermanagh/South Tyrone in 2001 and their intervention in South Belfast in 2005 which saw the loss of both of those seats to nationalists. Can it simply be pure coincidence that both those seats just happened to have been held by the UUP?!"

She claims that the DUP's offer of an electoral pact with the UUP "still stands." But if that is true then why has she allowed herself to be selected at all? Following on from a deflating European Election the DUP have realized that they no longer represent the voice of Unionism - from this we have welcomed to our ranks Councillor Harry Greenaway along with David Black and Raymond Farrell. Voters in Fermanagh and South Tyrone will see through the DUP's blatant hypocrisy on this issue."