BRITISH CONSERVATIVE leader David Cameron has renewed his call for an Ulster Unionist MP to join a future Conservative British cabinet.
In a recorded message played at the weekend agm of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr Cameron stressed his commitment to the new Tory-UUP electoral pact claiming is was the right approach following what he called the settlement of the North’s constitutional question.
“I believe the time is right for Northern Ireland to be brought back into the mainstream of United Kingdom politics,” he said.
“I want MPs from Northern Ireland serving in a Conservative government at Westminster. I want to draw on the talents of people from all parts of the United Kingdom. That’s my selfish strategic interest.
“Northern Ireland can move on from focusing on constitutional battles, because the constitutional issue is settled.”
However the UUP’s sole MP, Lady [Sylvia] Hermon was not present. She is known to question the link with the Conservatives, a factor which helped provoke the resignation of senior Northern Ireland Conservative Jeffrey Peel just one week after the pact was formally declared in February.
Turning to June’s European elections Mr Cameron, who spent the weekend at his party’s spring conference in Cheltenham, said it was vital that Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson is returned “and for him to take his place as part of the strong Conservative team of MEPs”.Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey echoed Mr Cameron’s line claiming his party could offer Northern Ireland and unionism a place “at the very heart of British politics”.
“We provide voters here with the opportunity to have a real voice in national politics,” he said.
The union with Britain was threatened most by the growing numbers of unionists not voting, he argued. “The greatest challenge to the union doesn’t come – as the DUP would have us believe – from a split in the unionist vote. It comes from the cold, hard mathematical reality that increasing numbers from within the pro-union electorate are not voting,” said Sir Reg.