Northern Ireland voters condemn Karen Bradley over ‘ignorant’ remarks on voting habits
2 min read
Voters in Northern Ireland have hit out at Karen Bradley over her admission she did not know they split along constitutional lines before becoming Secretary of State for the province.
Ms Bradley provoked outrage after admitting in an interview with The House magazine she had not realised “nationalists don’t vote for unionists and vice versa” when she was appointed Northern Ireland secretary.
Speaking to the Guardian, Belfast resident Anthony Quinn said: “Hire someone for a job, you run them through things, make sure they know what’s what.
“I hire a driver, I check he can drive. Give a 16-year-old a job packing shelves in Tesco, you make sure he can pack shelves.”
While Henry McCarthy, a retired community worker, added: “I was absolutely horrified that she could be in a position where she was so terribly ignorant of a situation in which so many people were killed, it just baffles me.”
In the interview that provoked the outrage, Ms Bradley told the House magazine: “I freely admit that when I started this job, I didn’t understand some of the deep-seated and deep-rooted issues that there are in Northern Ireland.
“I didn’t understand things like when elections are fought, for example, in Northern Ireland – people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice versa.”
Sinn Féin’s former Stormont finance minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir said Bradley’s comments were a “sorry reminder” of where the country was on the priority list of the British government.
He compared the appointment to installing a chancellor who “could not count”.
A Downing Street spokesperson said May retained confidence in Bradley and that the minister was “working incredibly hard” to restore devolved government.
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