Jack McKee

Alderman Jack McKee (born 1944[1]) is a Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) politician in Larne, Northern Ireland.

Until his resignation from the party in 2007, McKee was a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) councillor.[2] He is one of the longest-serving councillors on Larne Borough Council; like the Ulster Unionist Party's Roy Beggs, he has served continuously since the council was formed in 1973. Every council election he runs in the Larne Lough electoral district. He was also elected to the Northern Ireland Forum in 1996 and the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1982.

At an anti-Good Friday Agreement protest in Antrim on April 1998 McKee shared a platform with then fellow DUP member Sammy Wilson and Kenneth Peeples, a leader of the Orange Volunteers and Protestant fundamentalist, who burned a copy of the agreement.[3] In 2000 he was accused by fellow Larne councillor and Social Democratic and Labour Party member Danny O'Connor of raising tensions in the Catholic Seacourt estate by claiming Irish republicans were targeting the minority Ulster Protestant population in the estate.[4] In 2004 republican political party Sinn Féin claimed McKee had justified a death threat made to Danny O'Connor's mother by Ulster loyalists erecting a flag outside her house.[5] McKee has also spoken of his opinion that Larne Borough Council should not provide funding grants to Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) teams as he stated the GAA is a sectarian organisation.[6]

He served as Mayor of Larne in 1984/5, and as leader of the DUP group on Larne Borough Council for many years from 1981.[1] His brother Bobby McKee is still a DUP councillor in Larne. Jack McKee resigned from the DUP in January 2007 in protest at the DUP's preparations for entering government with Sinn Féin. He subsequently joined the TUV.[7]

McKee cited heavy-handed policing by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) at loyalist protests as the reason for his resignation from the local District Policing Partnership. He was critical of the PSNI's handling of the 2012-2013 Northern Ireland protests near the sectarian interface at Short Strand, where he claimed republicans attacked loyalist protesters without police intervention.[8]

In February 2015 McKee objected to a memorial for eight women from Islandmagee convicted of witchcraft because he wasn't convinced that the women weren't guilty of devil worship and because he believed the plaque to remember them could become a “shrine to paganism”. He also stated that he could not support the proposal because he believed it to be anti-God.[9]

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References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sydney Elliott and W. D. Flackes, Northern Ireland: A Political Directory, 1968-1999, p.333
  2. ↑ Belfast Telegraph, Tuesday, February 13, 2007 – Niggling doubts over safe seats – Will DUP see dent in support through prospect of sharing power with SF?
  3. ↑ "'Demon Pastors' are humbled", The Guardian
  4. ↑ Sectarian attacks Iol.ie
  5. ↑ UDA threaten SDLP councillor's mother An Phoblacht
  6. ↑ This week back in 1995 Larne Times
  7. ↑ "TUV decision 'no slight'", Larne Times, 20 March 2008
  8. ↑ "McKee quits partnership body over ‘heavy-handed’ policing of protests" Larne Times 19 September 2013
  9. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/05/islandmagee-witches-plaque-christian-jack-mckee