Tom Elliott (politician)

Elliott received his primary and high school education in his native Ballinamallard. Later, he earned a College Certificate in Agriculture from the Enniskillen College of Agriculture.[3]

Elliott has been an activist in the Ballinamallard Ward Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) committee for many years and is chairman of that committee. He has also been Honorary Secretary of the Fermanagh Divisional Unionist Association since 1998 and was chairman of the internal Ulster Unionist ad hoc Review Group for its duration.[3]

Elliott was the election agent for James Cooper in 2001 Westminster campaign and in June of the same year was elected an Ulster Unionist Councillor on Fermanagh District Council representing Erne North. He was re-elected May 2005 but resigned to allow a Co-option in August 2010. In November 2003 he was elected as a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly representing Fermanagh and South Tyrone, a position to which he was re-elected in March 2007 and May 2011. In this role he served as Ulster Unionist Assembly spokesperson on Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Elliott was selected as the UUP candidate for Fermanagh and South Tyrone UK Parliament constituency in the 2005 general election and came in third behind the Sinn Féin and DUP candidates. The UUP share of the vote fell from 34% in 2001 to 18% in 2005.

He was reselected for the 2010 general election, but stood down in favour of independent Unionist candidate Rodney Connor. With the DUP, TUV, UKIP and the Conservatives not contesting the seat in 2015, Elliott, as the sole unionist candidate, won the seat at the 2015 election. He lost the seat in the 2017 general election, with 45.5% of the vote to 47.2% for Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew. He ran again in 2019, but lost to Gildernew by 57 votes, with 43.2% of the vote to Gildernew's 43.3%.

Elliott is a member of the Orange Order within Fermanagh, the Royal Black Preceptory and the Kesh branch of the Apprentice Boys of Derry (ABOD).[12]

Elliott stated publicly that he wouldn't attend gay pride parades or Gaelic Athletic Association matches,[13] but did later meet with some gay rights groups and GAA figures in Northern Ireland.[14][15]

After he was elected in the 2011 Assembly election, in his victory speech in Omagh Elliott referred to the Irish tricolour as a "flag of a foreign nation". When the audience started heckling him, he went on to describe nationalist supporters holding Irish flags as "the scum of Sinn Féin".[16][17] Although initially refusing to retract his comment[18] he later issued an apology of sorts "to all those good nationalists, republicans, even Sinn Fein voters who felt offended by it."[19]

In August 2012, Elliott opposed money being spent on public inquests into people killed by the British Army and loyalist paramilitaries during the Troubles. He urged relatives of those killed by the IRA—whom he called "the real victims"—to band together to "choke the system up" and stop such inquests happening.[20] He later clarified his remarks saying "At no stage did I suggest or infer that anyone killed in the Troubles, who was not murdered by the IRA, were 'not real victims'".[21]

In February 2016, Elliott was criticised when he provided a statement to a court on behalf of a convicted benefit cheat. The judge in the case said he received a letter from a "senior politician" that spoke "glowingly" of the convicted man's work in the voluntary sector.[22] Elliott denied it was a character reference. That same month, he was criticised by a judge for writing a testimonial for a man convicted for driving while disqualified.[23] Although not naming Elliott in court he said he "crossed the line of the independence of the court" and "trespassed on the sentencing process."[24]

Elliott settled a defamation case with Attorney General John Larkin by issuing a statement through his barrister and donating an undisclosed sum of money to charity.[25] Under the terms of the settlement the following statement was read out by Elliott's senior counsel:

"On 20 April 2016, during the course of a live debate on the Stephen Nolan BBC Radio Ulster show, Mr Elliott made a number of statements which may have been taken to imply that the attorney general, John Larkin, had failed to discharge his professional duties impartially and with fairness. Mr Elliott wishes to confirm that he did not intend to impugn the integrity of Mr Larkin or for any such inferences to be taken from his statements. Mr Elliott regrets any embarrassment which this may have caused Mr Larkin."[26]