BASIL McCrea has not lost his £11,000 job as chairman of a Stormont committee, despite being expelled from the Ulster Unionist group at Stormont, it has emerged.
Last month UUP leader Mike Nesbitt removed the party whip from Mr McCrea, meaning that at Stormont the Lagan Valley MLA is now an independent even though he remains a member of the UUP.
Eyebrows were raised at Stormont on Monday, the first day the Assembly sat after the Christmas holiday, when there was no mention on the order paper of Mr McCrea’s position being allocated to a UUP MLA.
Yesterday it became clear that Mr McCrea had not been moved from the position as he chaired the first meeting of the employment and learning committee since he was disciplined.
Losing the whip has several implications for an MLA, including where they sit in the chamber, but most are minor. The most significant impact is financial, and comes from losing the committee chairmanship positions which are allocated based on party strength.
Allowing Mr McCrea to keep his post appears to be some form of olive branch from the party leadership, though a party spokesman declined to comment on why he had not been removed. There is surprise among other Stormont parties that Mr McCrea has retained the job.
Mr McCrea told the News Letter: “I waited to see if anyone said ‘Don’t chair the committee’, but no one else was nominated.”
However, disciplinary proceedings are proceeding against him and Mr McCrea – who was unable to attend a disciplinary hearing earlier this month because of a family commitment – said that he had now received a new date for the hearing, which will take place next Friday.
Mr McCrea said that he would “absolutely” be attending and presenting a strong defence of his actions.
Announcing that he was removing the whip from Mr McCrea on December 13, Mr Nesbitt said that Mr McCrea was “doing enormous damage to the UUP”.
Last night Mr McCrea also said that he was uneasy at the inclusion on the Unionist Forum of unelected individuals with links to loyalist paramilitaries.
Among those invited by the DUP and UUP to sit on the forum at its first meeting last week were UDA leaders Jackie McDonald and Jimmy Birch.
Mr McCrea said that he was not against “engaging” with such individuals but added: “There are problems surrounding the optics of the forum.
“I don’t think there is or should be any equivalence between those with an elected mandate and those who are there because of other reasons.
“This will not sit easily with large numbers of the population and it’s also not clear that they will be able to get any tangible outcomes.”