Pride flag bomb hoax: Alliance Party says one of its councillors was target and that the alert 'is an echo of dark days of past'

It said that the properties involved were those of councillor Peter McCully, and a former councillor whom it did not name.

The PSNI said that a suspicious object had been found wrapped in a pride flag in Hopefield Avenue at around 7.30pm.

On Friday police said they were looking into a second object nearby.

It is not clear why councillor McCully has been targeted.

He has been a councillor for barely six weeks, having been elected for the first time to Causeway Coast and Glens District Council on May 18.

A search of his Twitter account, which he has had since 2014 and which has just over 300 followers, brings up virtually no mention of anything linked to homosexuality or transgenderism; nothing for the terms “LGBT” or its derivatives, nothing for “pride”, nothing for “transgender”, and just a single mention of the word gay, in passing, in 2017.

It is also not clear what type of pride flag was involved – whether it was the traditional rainbow-striped gay pride flag, or its new transgender/Black Lives Matter-inclusive incarnation.

The Alliance Party said in a statement: "Alliance can confirm these security alerts involved a hoax device at the home of Councillor Peter McCully and another alert at the home of a former party councillor.

"We utterly condemn those behind these appalling attacks and call on all other parties to do likewise.

"Nobody should face this kind of threat when simply doing their job. In addition, local residents have been left facing huge disruption due to their irresponsible actions of a few who represent nobody other than themselves.

"This has echoes of both the dark days of our troubled past and more recent times, when homes and offices of Alliance elected representatives were targeted for once again simply doing our job. The addition of a Pride flag adds an extra sinister edge.

"It is clear some are still not getting the message this reckless violence is not welcome in Northern Ireland.

"We urge anyone with information on these incidents to contact police with it immediately."

Moves have been afoot in recent years for some physical symbol to be created to honour a former native of Portrush, renowned gay campaigner Mark Ashton.

He was born in England but grew up in Portrush, and helped link together the anti-Thatcherite miners’ strike protests with gay rights protests during the 1980s.

He died of AIDS aged 26.

A statement from independent unionist MLA for the area Claire Sugden in March this year had praised him, saying that “he had the courage to stand up for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community at a time when doing so put you at risk of personal, social and professional harm” (though she did not mention the fact Ashton was a member of the Soviet-linked Communist Party of Great Britain, and general secretary of its youth wing).

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