Diana Armstrong, the daughter of former Ulster Unionist leader Harry West, will contest the general election for the party in the expected hotly contested seat of Fermanagh and South Tyrone.
The Fermanagh and Omagh District Council representative replaces Tom Elliot as candidate for the seat, which the party lost in 2019 by just 57 votes to Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew, who is set to stand for MEP for Midlands/North West in the June European elections.
Ms Armstrong, first elected to the council in 2019, said: “Fermanagh and South Tyrone Constituency has a history of being a very marginal seat. For many years the people of this area haven’t had any representation at Westminster.”
Ms Armstrong’s father was the leader of the UUP for five years to 1979 and briefly a Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP in 1974, a two election year. He was a member of the old Northern Ireland parliament from 1957 until its 1973 dissolution.
