UUP leader Doug Beattie has vowed not be intimidated following an overnight attack on his constituency office.
A window was smashed at the property in Portadown, Co Armagh, hours after Mr Beattie announced that his party was withdrawing from participating in loyalist rallies against Brexit’s Northern Ireland Protocol.
On Sunday evening, the UUP leader claimed anti-protocol rallies were being used to raise tensions.
He linked the increasing political volatility to an upsurge in paramilitary activity, including a bomb hoax at an event attended by Dublin's foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney in north Belfast on Friday.
That incident, in which a van driver was hijacked at gunpoint, has been blamed on the UVF.
Mr Beattie said today: “The attack on my office overnight is one of the inevitable consequences I have been warning about.
“My primary concern is for the welfare of my staff and this was a cowardly attack on their workplace which provides a service to the people of Upper Bann.
“What it will not do is deter me from carrying out my democratic work or speaking out when I have genuine concerns about the direction in which people are being led. Attacking offices and attempting to intimidate politicians demonstrates the weakness of your argument if that is what you have to resort to.”
The Upper Bann MLA added: “We want to see the protocol replaced and we have been expressing our consistent opposition to it since it was first mooted in October 2019, but where I differ with others is the way in which we approach that.
“I am a confident, positive unionist representing a party which will engage to bring about change. It is a political problem which will only be solved by finding a political solution.
“We respect the right of anyone to legally and peacefully protest. However, tensions are rising, with some spokespeople at anti-protocol rallies openly calling for people to get angry and to raise the temperature.
“Blood-and-thunder rhetoric from a lectern will not help nor solve the protocol problem. This is exactly what we need to avoid. We need to learn the lessons of the past.
“If anyone thinks that they can intimidate me or the Ulster Unionist Party, they clearly don’t know me or understand the party I represent.”
Mr Beattie said he expects he will lose votes over his decision for his party not to take part in future anti-Northern Ireland Protocol rallies.
He described tensions in the north as rising and said he had a real concern that the rallies are adding to the tension.
He said the rallies have become not just protests against the protocol, but also "anti Belfast Agreement rallies".
He also said there is "absolutely not" a political element to his decision coming ahead of the Assembly elections.
"I won't lie for a vote, and if I lose votes I will lose votes," Mr Beattie said.
"People who know Upper Bann will understand that in many cases I will lose votes because of the decision I have made, but it's the right decision.
"I'm not doing this for a vote, I'm doing this because the tensions in Northern Ireland are rising and somebody can smash my window but I can fix it, but the first time that someone gets injured, the first time that someone gets killed, there is no going back on that.
"We are in a spiral of violence that I do not want to get us into. This is nothing to do with the election, this purely to do with protests around the protocol which I do not think that we should get involved in to raise tensions.
"I really do think we need to be focusing on the cost-of-living crisis, let's see some protests out there about that and fuel poverty."
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson condemned the incidents in north Belfast and Portadown.
“Let me be absolutely clear – those who thought it was a good idea to attack Doug Beattie’s office are completely wrong,” Sir Jeffrey told a business event in Belfast.
“I’m a democrat, I’ve always believed passionately in the rule of law and upholding democracy, and I believe that every single person who steps out and puts themselves forward as a public representative is entitled to be respected, regardless of their views.
“Violence can have no part to play in resolving our political issues in Northern Ireland. It never had, it never will, and I would say to whoever is responsible for this attack, and indeed whoever was responsible for what happened on Friday in terms of the event attended by the Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, that this contributes nothing to our opposition to the protocol, our desire to find solutions.
“It is only through politics we will find those solutions.
“So, I’m absolutely clear – these attacks are wrong, I condemn them, they have no place and no part to play in the future of Northern Ireland.”
Asked about the anti-protocol rallies, several of which he has attended and spoken at, Sir Jeffrey said there is nothing wrong with “peaceful protest”.
However, he stressed there is a need for people to use “careful” language.
“I think we should continue to encourage a culture of respect,” he said.
“We do have different opinions, but we should differ well. I think the language we use is important. I don’t think it’s wrong for people to engage in peaceful protest but certainly we need to be careful about what we say. And I always am.
“I want people to have a focus for their concerns, which is through the political process.
“And I am absolutely unequivocal in my view that violence can have no part to play in any of this. Intimidation can have no part to play in any of this. We have to respect the democratic process.”
