Ian Paisley Jr

For the 2011–12 financial year, Paisley's total expenses claim was the seventh-highest of all members of parliament.[5] His expenses for the 2012–13 financial year were £232,000; the highest of any MP that year. The costs covered travel and accommodation for Paisley himself and his constituency staff.[6] In an interview with the Ballymena Times, Paisley stated "None of this money goes to me as MP ... They are legitimate expenses signed off by IPSA and paid directly by the Parliament".[5] He had the second-highest expenses claim in the 2013–14 financial year. For the 2014–15 financial year, he was again the second-highest claimant, receiving £227,000 in expenses.[7] During the 2010–2015 Parliament, Paisley claimed a total of £1,112,667 in expenses.[8]

Paisley strongly supported "Vote Leave" in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and was a supporter of the Eurosceptic campaign Leave Means Leave. While rejecting calls by Republican party Sinn Féin for a referendum in Northern Ireland on a unified Ireland, he advised his constituents to get a Republic of Ireland passport if they were eligible.[9]

In 2018 Paisley was suspended from the House of Commons for 30 sitting days, beginning on 4 September 2018, because he broke paid advocacy rules by receiving hospitality from the Sri Lankan government without declaring that to the Commons. Following his suspension, the Recall of MPs Act 2015 was invoked for the first time since it received Royal Assent. However, the resulting recall petition—the first in British parliamentary history—was signed by only 9.4% of registered voters, below the 10% threshold to trigger a by-election. Paisley's membership of the DUP was suspended between 24 July and 18 September 2018, during internal investigations by the party into his conduct.

In September 2020, Paisley was fined £1,300 (€1,400) by the Electoral Commission for accepting a total of £2,600 from two local councils to purchase tables at a fund-raising event at the Tullyglass hotel in Ballymena in September 2017. Paisley also agreed to pay back the money.[10]

In 2019, Paisley helped JCB heir Jo Bamford purchase Wrightbus, the financially troubled manufacturer of London’s famous double-decker buses. Jeff Wright, then-owner of Wrightbus, publicly complained of Paisley’s alleged interference into the negotiations of the sale of Wrightbus to Bamford.[11] Once the purchase was complete, Bamford publicly praised Paisley for his help.[12]

On 12 October 2019 Paisley wrote an op-ed in the Belfast Telegraph in which he praised Bamford and thanked him for buying Wrightbus.[13]

In March 1998, Paisley and Sammy Wilson spoke at a rally in Portadown organised by the paramilitary Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) in opposition to political negotiations preceding the Good Friday Agreement. Their appearance was widely criticised; the rally came hours after the funeral for two men murdered by the LVF, Philip Allen and Damien Trainor – one a Protestant, one a Catholic – in a bar in Poyntzpass, County Armagh, in an indiscriminate sectarian attack.[14] At the rally, Paisley told followers of the late LVF leader Billy Wright "...the sooner this government wakes up to the reality that you can't talk to the Provisional IRA to get peace - the only way to get peace out of the Provisional IRA is to exterminate them, put them out of business".[15]

In 2005, Paisley came under some criticism for his beliefs about homosexuality and same-sex marriages. Upon learning that David Trimble's aide, Steven King, had married his partner in Canada, Paisley was quoted as saying, "It is really astounding that David Trimble should have had a man such as this giving him advice – and must surely cast grave doubts on his own political judgement. I think these sorts of relationships are immoral, offensive and obnoxious."[16][17]

Paisley caused further controversy in May 2007 when, in an interview with journalist Jason O'Toole in Hot Press magazine, he said that "I am pretty repulsed by gay and lesbianism. I think it is wrong. I think that those people harm themselves and – without caring about it – harm society. That doesn't mean to say that I hate them – I mean, I hate what they do."[18]

In 2011, Paisley said of his previous comments: "I think I have grown up since then. I have strong Christian beliefs and moral viewpoints, but you have to realise that while sin is black and white, life is a lot of grey. You have to be mature about these things. I can strongly disagree with those viewpoints, but the point is how you disagree."[19]

Paisley was unable to graduate from his MSSc in the summer graduation period, due to having exceeded the word count on his dissertation, and instead graduated in the winter period of 1994. The summer of 1994 was the last year Queen's University Belfast played the British national anthem;[20] Paisley responded by playing the anthem on a tape recorder during his winter graduation.[21]

Paisley had been linked in press reports to local property developer Seymour Sweeney when, in 2007, Sweeney admitted that Paisley had lobbied on his behalf regarding plans for a private visitors' centre at the Giant's Causeway, the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Ireland. Paisley strongly denied that he had any financial relationship with Sweeney, although he admitted that he had gone deep sea fishing with the developer socially.[22]

Paisley had been involved in the commercial development of the north Antrim coast and strongly supported Alistair Hanna's controversial Bushmills Dunes Golf Resort and Spa proposal, an 18-hole golf course and hotel complex at Runkerry, adjacent to the Giant's Causeway.[23] There were a series of public blunders and further controversy in February 2008, following scrutiny on the employment of family members by politicians after the Derek Conway scandal, when it emerged that Paisley was on his father's payroll as a researcher in the constituency of North Antrim in addition to his roles as an MLA and a junior minister.[24] As a result, Paisley resigned his junior minister position on 18 February 2008.[25]

Further controversy occurred in August 2008 when Paisley, speaking after a number of attacks on the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said that dissident republicans should be "shot on sight".[26]

In September 2017, The Daily Telegraph alleged that Paisley received hospitality from the government of Sri Lanka for two visits there in 2013 without declaring it, and pointed out that he had been involved in securing a post-Brexit trade deal with that country.[27] However, Paisley stated that the claims were defamatory and that he had referred the matter to his solicitor.[28]

In July 2018, the House of Commons Standards Committee recommended that Paisley be suspended from the Commons for 30 sitting days, for not declaring visits to Sri Lanka paid for by the Sri Lankan government, and for breaking the Commons rule banning paid advocacy. The Committee concluded that Paisley's actions amounted to serious misconduct. The Committee suggested that Paisley's failure to register his visit to Sri Lanka occurred because he was conscious of the potential embarrassment that would be caused to him were it to become publicly known that he had accepted very expensive hospitality, for himself and his family, from a foreign government accused of serious human rights violations.[29]

On 24 July 2018, MPs voted to suspend Paisley from the House of Commons for a period of 30 sitting days, beginning on 4 September 2018. His salary was also to be withheld for 30 days. The DUP released a statement confirming that the party officers had decided to suspend him from the party until an internal investigation were held into his conduct. The Speaker of the House of Commons confirmed he would write to the Chief Electoral Officer in Northern Ireland to initiate the MP recall mechanisms, as specified in the Recall of MPs Act 2015. A recall petition opened on 8 August.[30]

On 20 September 2018, the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland announced the recall petition had fallen 444 votes short of the number needed to spark a by-election.[31] Following this result, the DUP announced that it had lifted Ian Paisley's party suspension on 18 September, but had banned him from taking any party office for a year.[32]

Paisley visited Sri Lanka twice; the first occasion was from 30 March 2013 until 5 April, and the second occasion from 2 July 2013 until 11 July.[33] In their family visa application submitted to the Sri Lanka High Commission in London, all six who travelled declared that the purpose of their visit to Sri Lanka was "official".[33]

In September 2019, following the publication of an analytical article written by journalist Sam McBride in the Belfast News Letter, concerning the DUP's ongoing negotiations in Stormont, Paisley criticised McBride online, calling him "despicable", "immature", and "simplistic". In response, the National Union of Journalists condemned the remarks as an "unwarranted personal attack" on the journalist. Following further criticism, Paisley apologised, stating that he "expressed [himself] badly".[34]

In 2016, Paisley and his family took a holiday to a resort in the Maldives, a trip that he did not disclose as he was required to do. He took the trip months after advocating on behalf the Maldivian government. An investigation concluded that Paisley had failed to properly register the visit, and that his hospitality had likely not been paid for by a friend, as he had claimed. However, he was found not to have broken any rules on “paid advocacy.”[35]