A WEST Belfast councillor has slammed a speech by loyalist Jamie Bryson in Portadown on Tuesday night as "an ego trip played out in a car park"

Mr Bryson, who is acting as a legal advisor to the Portadown District of the Orange Order during the current Drumcree dispute, was addressing a crowd of around 200 who had gathered in a car park at the end of the Garvaghy Road.

A 'Drumcree Family Support event' had been put on hold due to bad weather with speakers including members of the Orange Order in Portadown, DUP MP Carla Lockhart, DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley, as well as representatives from the UUP and TUV instead addressing those gathered.

In his speech Jamie Bryson hit out at PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, claiming Sinn Féin and the IRA had treated him like a "wee boy" over the current Drumcree standoff.

He said failing to allow the Portadown Orangemen to complete their march would have “unthinkable” consequences for the law.

Referencing the First Minister Michelle O’Neill, he said: “She should be turfed out of office” and “put in the back of a Land Rover".

Criticising the PSNI’s response to the protests on Sunday, he called it “the Bobby Storey funeral on steroids".

Reacting to the speech, Independent Councillor Paul Doherty, said: "Around 200 people turning up in a car park to listen to Jamie Bryson last night tells its own story.

"For all the noise, threats and grandstanding, he clearly does not have the influence he would have people believe.

"I think people, including many within the unionist community, can see through this whole facade. What is happening around Garvaghy Road is increasingly being used by Bryson to put himself at the centre of the story.

"An ego trip played out in a car park while a community is being forced through this nightmare all over again.

"People see through it."