02/11/2026
Another shocking set of revelations in this week’s Sunday World about Timothy Gaston’s past and links to a seemingly pro-UDA band that chanted pro-UDA slogans, marched behind UDA flags and took part in a terror boss memorial march headed with a UFF wreath. In addition to this, even more footage of his band chanting pro-UDA slogans elsewhere in what is described as their ‘party piece’.
When revelations were published last week, TUV’s reaction was to post the racist ‘Migrant Express’ cartoon. Their politics of distraction sought to stir up hate rather than take accountability.
The UDA and UFF were proscribed terror groups at the time that Gaston was involved in these events. Gaston was handpicked by Jim Allister and fast tracked to his unelected seat in Stormont. Far from being the party ‘the rule of law’, these revelations uncover something much more sinister.
Over the past 10 days, Gaston has ignored and denied allegations, then changed his story and claimed he was only 16, and that the proscribed org support was a one off by people who had too much to drink. The new evidence blows this out of the water.
A ‘Sunday World investigation shows him banging his drum with the Ballymena Protestant Boys at the Gerry Evans memorial parade back in 2006.’
‘At the very front of the parade a man is seen carrying a
Ulster Freedom Fighters flower arrangement which was laid ar a UDA memorial and gable-wall mural in Queen's Park, Glengormley - where the paramilitary boss was from.’
‘The UDA held a memorial parade every year for Evans and videos of previous memorial parades also show UDA wreaths as well as UFF wreaths being carried at the front of the procession. Timothy Gaston's band, which had been criticised for carrying UDA standards in press articles long before our story last week, was in attendance at the memorial in 2006.’
Gerry Carroll MLA’s comment hits the nail on the head:
“Serious questions remain about the role of the South East Antrim UDA in last year’s racist pogroms in Ballymena, when families were burned out of their homes.
“Working class people deserve politics free from paramilitary control.”
Working class communities deserve better than overpaid MLA hypocrisy.