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Decorated Army veteran Doug Beattie has been deemed elected as the new leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\nDecorated Army veteran Doug Beattie has been deemed elected as the new leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
The Upper Bann Assembly member will succeed the resigning Steve Aiken in the role after it was confirmed he was the only candidate to put his name forward for election.<\/p>\n
Party chair Danny Kennedy told a Stormont press conference that Mr Beattie, 55, was therefore deemed elected, subject to ratification by the party council on May 27th.<\/p>\n
Mr Beattie, who served as a soldier for 34 years and was awarded the Military Cross for bravery in combat, promised a \u201cprogressive and unifying\u201d agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel the weight of expectation on my shoulder, we are an historic party, we are the party of (Edward) Carson and (James) Craig, but we are a modernizing party and we are a party that wants to reach out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we will do that by reforming our message, by reforming our party structures, by bringing in more females and more young people, making our policies better understood and more crystallized and reaching to everybody to say that this is Northern Ireland, a place that we all want to live in, and let\u2019s all work together to be able to live here.\u201d<\/p>\n