UUP debates government exit over Provisional IRA claims

A crunch meeting where senior members of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) will vote on whether to walk away from Northern Ireland’s powersharing government over claims the Provisional IRA (PIRA) still exists has begun in Belfast.

UUP leader Mike Nesbitt has proposed the exit in response to a police assessment that structures of the supposedly defunct paramilitary organisation remain in place and some of its members were involved in a recent Belfast murder.