Whoever becomes leader and deputy leader at the Emergency General Meeting in late January in a Belfast hotel, their primary vision must be to establish Co-operative Unionism in time for the May 2027 Stormont and council elections.
No matter if the new UUP leadership decides on a liberal or traditional ideology for the party, a strategy on the number of candidates and transfers between parties must be the primary concern in its ‘in box’.
Vote splitting, non-transferring and voter apathy in traditionally pro-Union constituencies have seen seats lost to the pan nationalist front of Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Alliance.
If brutal examples were needed, Unionism only needs to examine the results of the last Westminster poll in Lagan Valley, a supposedly rock solid pro-Union seat since its creation in 1983. Because of a three-way split between the DUP, UUP and TUV in the General Election, the seat fell to Alliance.
During the last Stormont showdown, because of poor transferring among pro-Union parties, veteran DUP MLA Mervyn Storey lost out to Alliance in North Antrim.
Indeed, in many normally pro-Union District Electoral Areas (DEAs) across Northern Ireland, voter turnout is starting to dip well below 60 per cent as an increasing number of ‘stay at home’ Unionists lose faith in the ballot box.
Gone are the days when Unionist MPs could boast of a 30,000 plus vote majority in General Elections. Put bluntly, Unionism has allowed the pan nationalist front a free gift at the ballot box. In recent years, too, many in the pro-Union community have been voting Alliance as a protest against the mixed-messaging among the Unionist parties.
However, a clear message must be sent out to moderate Unionism from the UUP’s EGM on 31st January - Alliance is no longer the soft-u Unionist party it was under Oliver Napier, David Cook or John Alderdice.
Alliance 2026 is an integral part of the pan nationalist front and has now become a soft-r republican party, occupying the electoral ground once held by the now defunct Irish Independence Party of the Seventies, which was once fronted by Protestant ex-British Army officer John Turnley before his murder by the UDA in 1980.
If Unionism as an ideology is to regain the upper hand electorally at Assembly, local government and Westminster levels, all the pro-Union parties will have to work together publicly so that Unionist voters can see that co-operation is a practical reality, and not empty rhetoric.
The blame game as to who split Unionism will have to be laid to rest. The bitterness of not voting for other pro-Union parties will have to be set aside and Unionists will have to vote all the way down the ballot paper for every pro-Union candidate on the ticket.
Likewise, the various pro-Union parties will have to realistically analyse how many candidates can be elected according to the pro-Union quotas available, and equally importantly, which pro-Union parties are best placed to either take or hold seats in the Assembly and council in May 2027.
It has been done in the past. For example, in February 1974, operating under the banner of the United Ulster Unionist Council, known as the Treble UC or Unionist Coalition, pro-Union parties scooped up 11 of the 12 Westminster General Election seats.
At that time, the Treble UC represented three main Unionist parties - DUP, UUP and Vanguard. Voter turnout in many constituencies was well over 60 per cent, and over 70 per cent in some seats.
The new UUP leadership will have to create an ethos of Co-operative Unionism, whereby agreed party candidates will have to be stood to ensure increased voter confidence among the pro-Union electorate, and especially the winning of seats at all levels.
Unionism will have to again find the Treble UC Spirit of ’74 strategically if it is to avoid continuing to play second fiddle electorally to the pan nationalist front.
And especially at Northern Ireland Assembly level, Unionism will have to undo the disaster of 20 years ago and the St Andrews Agreement when the top post of First Minister was changed from the largest designation (as under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement) to the largest party.
The mentality of putting party before Province must be confined to the dustbin of history. Unionism must use this year to lobby the British Government to restore ‘largest designation’ to the Stormont First Minister’s role.
The mouthpiece of the Provisional IRA, its political wing Sinn Fein, holds the First Minister’s post as under the St Andrews Agreement, the republican movement is the largest party at Stormont. Indeed, Sinn Fein has eaten so much electorally into the moderate Catholic vote that it has also eclipsed the SDLP as the largest party at council level.
Unionism cannot afford a knee jerk reaction to Sinn Fein being the top dog at the Assembly by calling for Stormont to be scrapped. If devolution falls once more, it will not be replaced by Direct Rule from Westminster, but by Joint Authority between the Dail and the House of Commons.
By 1st February, the UUP will have a new leadership in place. Whatever fancy label they wish to place on their ideology is irrelevant. It will have to be a policy of Co-operative Unionism among all the pro-Union parties that will decide the future direction of Unionism, and ultimately the future role of the UUP.
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. |
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