FUTURE OF ULSTER UNIONIST PARTY:The UUP has shown a lack of political judgment in this election in Belfast, writes DEAGLÁN DE BRÉADÚNin Belfast
THE ONCE-MIGHTY Ulster Unionist Party finds itself in a position not unlike that of the Progressive Conservatives in Canada, who went from being that country’s governing party, with 169 seats, down to inglorious defeat, with only two seats after the federal election of 1993.
The main difference is that the UUP has no seats at all in the House of Commons. Up until March of this year the party did have one MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon in North Down, but it managed to lose her before the election was even declared.
Party leader Sir Reg Empey is widely respected, but would not be seen as one of life’s natural risk-takers. He surprised many with his decision to leave his political base in the East Belfast constituency to take on Rev William McCrea of the Democratic Unionist Party in South Antrim.
On the face of it, he had a fighting chance. Rev McCrea did not endear himself to Catholic voters, or indeed some unionists, when he shared a platform with the dissident loyalist Billy Wright, who was blamed for a range of sectarian killings before he was himself murdered in the Maze Prison in 1997.
Had the Catholics voted on a tactical basis and in sufficient numbers for Sir Reg, he would now be making notes for his maiden speech at Westminster. But that would have required a stronger and more dynamic and focused campaign than the one that took place in the constituency.
As things turned out, of course, DUP leader Peter Robinson, beset by scandal, bit the electoral dust in Sir Reg’s former constituency. The surprise beneficiary was the Alliance Party’s Naomi Long rather than former rugby international Trevor Ringland of the UUP. Whether or not Sir Reg would have reaped the reward of Robinson’s discomfort is something we shall never know.
Unlike their rivals in other parties, the UUP has shown a lack of political judgment and something of a tin ear when it comes to political communication. In the 2005 Westminster election the party ran under the slogan, “Decent people vote Ulster Unionist”, which gave opponents the excuse to take grave offence at the suggestion that they, or their followers, were somehow less than respectable.
On this occasion, following its formal alliance with David Cameron’s Tories, the UUP ran under the acronym UCUNF. This actually stood for Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force, but it sounded more like something nasty a drunk would shout in a pub if someone spilt his pint.
The concept of teaming up with the Tories obviously seemed like a good idea at the time, but it failed to catch the imagination of voters. Cameron himself did not help either when he suggested that drastic cutbacks in the public sector in Northern Ireland were on the cards if he got into power.
The canny operators in the SDLP and Sinn Féin had the wit to focus their resources significantly on key constituencies. The SDLP retained its three seats, in Foyle, South Down and South Belfast, and Sinn Féin scored a major victory when Michelle Gildernew narrowly defeated her unionist rival Rodney Connor in Fermanagh-South Tyrone. Although Connor was formally a cross-party unionist candidate, UUP sources admit that he was “seen as being more ours than the DUP’s”.
Going back to the days of Ken Maginnis, Harry West and even Lord Brookeborough, that part of Northern Ireland has always been seen as an Ulster Unionist heartland.
The extremely tight margin of victory for Gildernew inevitably gives rise to conjecture that, if only the UUP had put greater resources into the campaign in that constituency, there would be one more unionist and one less republican in the winners’ enclosure at this point.
A spokesman said Sir Reg was meeting party officers yesterday afternoon and would be consulting Assembly members on Monday. But insiders said that, if he wishes to hold on to the leadership, there will be no groundswell to deprive him of it.
The party currently holds 18 out of 108 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the next elections are due in exactly 12 months’ time.
The key question for the UUP at this stage must be whether it should go it alone or enter into some form of alliance or even a merger with the DUP: at this stage the political differences between them are arguably matters of detail rather than principle.