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City Councillor Jolene Bunting has quit the TUV, it emerged today.

In a Facebook post, the Shankill representative said it was a “very heavy heart that I must announce that I have resigned from TUV with immediate effect”.

She added: “I will remain on Belfast City Council as an Independent member, I will also continue to serve the people of Court DEA (Greater Shankill).”

In 2014 Ms Bunting became the first TUV councillor to be voted onto Belfast City Council.

It is understood she had a fallout with the party after not being picked to run as an Assembly candidate in this week’s poll. Sources say a speech she made on the Brexit issue at Belfast City Council, in which she failed to deliver the party message, contributed to to her not being picked to run for a Stormont seat.

Shortly after becoming a councillor, she was forced to apologise after sectarian rants she posted online as a teenager resurfaced.

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Last month she told of her “heartbreak” that these posts were being “cast up” by members of her party to not allow her to run as a candidate in north Belfast.

A TUV spokesman would only say that they had received her resignation letter and accepted it.