The Rev Ian Paisley had given "a gift to Sinn Fein" by calling on people to vote only for parties which had said No to the Agreement, the Ulster Unionist MP, Mr John Taylor, said yesterday. He said Dr Paisley's remarks represented an abuse of the single transferable vote system and would be resented by unionists right across Northern Ireland.
"By saying that, Dr Paisley certainly acted as the election agent for Sinn Fein, because in the western part of the province and in Belfast and in all of Northern Ireland, we are electing six members in each constituency," Mr Taylor said.
"If anyone just votes for one or two unionists who were against the agreement and does not continue to transfer their vote to other pro-British candidates, they are in effect handing over the remaining four seats to Sinn Fein and to Irish nationalists."
Referring to a television programme featuring Dr Paisley broadcast on Monday evening, Mr Taylor accused the DUP leader of "a litany of errors and half-truths", which he hoped had not fooled anyone.
Dr Paisley had said that when he was elected to Stormont, he was told the 1921 Act was the basis of Northern Ireland's membership of the United Kingdom. This was nonsense as Northern Ireland had been part of the UK 121 years earlier, due to the Act of Union in 1800, Mr Taylor said.
Mr Ken Maginnis said the UUP had been successful in the agreement in ensuring the Union was now universally recognised. In contrast, the DUP had suffered failure after failure.
The SDLP had called for people to vote for candidates who backed the agreement, but the UUP was not urging people to vote against any party. The UUP was advising people to vote all the way down the list.