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Showing posts with label Ulster Unionist Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ulster Unionist Party. Show all posts
Dr John Coulter ✍ We may be in the midst of the summer holidays and the so-called silly season in journalism, but for many political parties, candidates and wannabe candidates, the 2027 Stormont and council elections campaigns have already begun.


I was recently flicking through some of the memorabilia from my late dad’s - Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE - elections campaigns over the years, when I came across a few stickers from his 1983 Westminster General Election campaign in North Antrim - the seat once held for decades by the Paisley dynasty.

A few years ago, I wrote about nearly getting into trouble when Dr Paisley rang my dad at home during that ’83 campaign to get him to stand aside. 

Whilst that campaign was the only election he lost in his political career in North Antrim, it was for me one of the most memorable because of the impact a few ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers caused.

Since Paisley senior had won the Westminster seat in 1970, defeating the then sitting MP Henry Clark of the Ulster Unionists, the UUP had struggled to put up an electoral fight against the Paisley bandwagon.

In the two General Elections of 1974, Paisley senior had been the agreed Unionist Coalition candidate.

In 1979, the year Maggie Thatcher stormed to power, the North Antrim UUP had parachuted in the lawyer Jeremy Burchill (later an UUP Assembly member for East Belfast in the Prior Assembly of 1982-86), but by then Paisley senior was well entrenched in the constituency and romped home with a majority in excess of 18,500.

Boundary changes were to see two new Westminster seats created for the ’83 campaign - East Antrim and East Londonderry. The DUP had its eyes on all three.

Assuming the UUP would fly in another parachute candidate, the original DUP plan was for Paisley senior to run in East Antrim (which comprised a large chunk of his original North Antrim seat), with North Antrim Assembly member Jim Allister (later to become TUV MP for North Antrim defeating Paisley Junior) to run in North Antrim, and high profile Coleraine councillor James McClure to run in the new East Londonderry.

However, the cat was thrown among the political pigeons when the North Antrim UUP association selected dad as the candidate. Whilst dad heralded originally from Tyrone, by 1983, his roots were firmly established in North Antrim through his role as a Presbyterian minister, Loyal Orders chaplain, and lecturer in Ballymena Technical College. In short, he was viewed as a ‘home grown’ UUP candidate rather than a parachute candidate.

The selection of dad as UUP candidate resulted in Paisley senior changing his mind and wanting to run in his original North Antrim, and shifting Allister into East Antrim.

Whilst the UUP knew dad could not snatch North Antrim from Paisley senior, the Jim Molyneaux-led party knew that if dad had a fairly high profile campaign in UUP terms, it would tie down Paisley senior to North Antrim, thus preventing him from spending time canvassing for Allister in East Antrim and McClure in East Londonderry.

The UUP strategy worked. Roy Beggs senior took East Antrim and William Ross took East Londonderry. Ironically years later, the DUP captured both Westminster seats.

The ’83 canvass was literally a bruising campaign for dad. That was the era of the old Fair Hill Saturday market in Ballymena. One Saturday as polling day neared, when dad and his team were electioneering in the market, he was punched and kicked by Paisley supporters.

This is not to say that Paisley senior himself condoned the physical abuse; merely to record that those attacking dad would have been Paisley voters. That specific attack ended abruptly when one Paisley supporter punched dad in the ribs only to hit the butt of dad’s personal protection weapon.

Once the Paisley supporter realised that dad was ‘carrying’, he backed off immediately.

But it was the emergence of dad’s ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers that was to have the unusual effect on the DUP camp and Paisley senior in particular.

It all started when a copy of Paisley senior’s North Antrim constituency canvassing itinerary ‘fell into the hands’ of the UUP team! We knew where and when Paisley senior would be electioneering.

Dad and his fellow canvassers immediately altered their own schedule and would visit the towns, villages, hamlets and estates ahead of the DUP team. The UUP workers would give the kids ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers as those were the days when the primary electioneering technique was a car fitted with loudspeakers.

The car would enter the housing development playing patriotic music followed by someone then using the loudspeaker to announce the arrival of the UUP canvassing team.

It was sometimes known as ‘the ice cream van technique’ in much the same way as an ice cream vendor would announce their arrival in a housing development.

Whilst a party worker would operate the loudspeaker system booming out the benefits of voting for the UUP, dad and fellow canvassers would go door to door. Naturally, all the fuss of the canvass would bring out children. Whilst their parents or guardians would be given election literature, the kids would be given the stickers.

So imagine how Paisley senior must have felt, arriving in a development a short time later to be greeted by kids wearing ‘Vote Coulter’ stickers! During that ’83 campaign, the UUP team handed out as many stickers as they did election leaflets!

But it had an unusual effect. Paisley senior issued a press statement calling on dad to stand aside so that the DUP could give Sinn Fein a hammering at the ballot box.

But in 1983, North Antrim Sinn Fein was a political fringe party - what could sarcastically be described as a ‘two man and a dog outfit’.

Sinn Fein came fourth and polled less than 3,000 votes, well behind the SDLP’s Dr Sean Farren on just over 6,000 votes.

Paisley senior even rang dad at home to ask him to stand aside! It was me who answered the telephone that evening and I honestly thought it was a practical joke when the man on the end of the line said he was Ian Paisley!

Yes, the UUP took a hammering in that election in North Antrim, and dad got a thumping in the Fair Hill market, but thanks to the ‘sticker campaign’, the DUP’s clean sweep strategy of taking three Westminster seats that year across the north west and north east of Ulster literally came unstuck!

In spite of all the in-depth academic electoral strategies at hand, its amazing what a few stickers can achieve!
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News.

Getting Into Sticky Times With The DUP!

Dr John Coulter ✍ My initial reaction when the political jungle drums were sending out a message that former UUP boss Doug Beattie of Upper Bann was considering his position within the party, was simple yet blunt - oh no, here we go again!

And by ‘here we go’, I mean the devastating rift that hit the party like a political tsunami over the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 when the UUP was virtually evenly split between the Yes and No camps.

The rival lobbies formed themselves into pressure groups. The No camp had Union First while the Yes camp opted for Re:Union. The end result was that the UUP lost its position as the leading party in Unionism to the DUP in the Assembly in 2003, followed by Westminster in 2005.

In the Assembly, the UUP is now at its lowest ebb in terms of numbers. With Doug Beattie resigning, the Stormont MLA group is now eight compared to the 1998 elections when it had 25 plus Assembly members. At Westminster, where once the party was in double digits in terms of MPs, it now has one - Robin Swann in South Antrim.

There has been much speculation that under current leader and North Antrim MLA Jon Burrows, the UUP is being nudged ideologically to the Right on the political spectrum to form an unofficial coalition of the Right with the DUP and TUV so that pro-Union parties get the message to transfer votes to each other in next May’s crucial Stormont and local government elections.

But Unionism’s real challenge is to persuade the tens of thousands of pro-Union supporters to actually come out and vote on polling day. Instead of chasing this mythical centre ground, Unionism should be concentrating on building its credibility amongst the so-called ‘stay at home’ electorate, especially in loyalist working class localities.

For several years, the UUP has been living in an ideological cloud cuckoo land that it has to win votes back from the supposedly middle of the road Alliance Party.

Whilst many Unionists may have voted for Alliance as a protest against the disunity in Unionism, the political mask has slipped in Alliance and the party is now firmly a part of the Pan Nationalist Front with the SDLP and Sinn Fein. This is the real message which the UUP has got to get across - that Alliance is now an Irish unity republican party.

There has also been much talk about a so-called realignment within Unionism, with the liberal wing of the UUP and the pro-Union faction within Alliance forming a new-look Liberal Unionist Party, whilst the Right-wing of the UUP joins up with the DUP and TUV to form some new kind of Loyalist and Unionist Party.

But one fact is certain, setting aside the debate on ideological realignment, the current Beattie/Burrows unofficial civil war has the potential to do untold damage to the UUP come May 2027. The battle lines are strangely similar to 1998.

The Yes camp wanted the Good Friday Agreement to work and were seen as the new liberals in the party under the late Lord David Trimble; those who were sceptical as to whether the Good Friday Agreement could succeed wanted to rekindle the opposition which had brought down the Sunningdale power-sharing Executive in 1974.

Under Burrows, the opinion polls have steadily become more favourable for the UUP. Burrows brought a media dynamic to the party. His positive media profile and use of social media gave the firm impression of a party which knew where its ideological direction was going.

This would be no repeat of that explosive post Brexit European election when the UUP lost its MEP seat to Alliance, a European seat the UUP had held since 1979. But the UUP was a divided party over Brexit, sending out mixed messages - is it a Leave party or a Remain party?

The Alliance bounce was clear because Alliance was categorically in the Remain camp, while the DUP and TUV were equally firmly in the Leave camp. Voters were totally confused on what the UUP stood for.

Unionism has to educate its power base that Alliance is no longer the ‘soft U’ Unionist party that it was under Lord John Alderdice; Alliance has become Sinn Fein ‘lite’. That’s the key message the UUP has got to repeatedly hammer home to pro-Union voters.

And there must be a clear statement that the lunatic fringe strategy of ‘Vote Mike, Get Colum’ is firmly dumped in the dustbin of history.

If there’s going to be a purge in the UUP as a result of the Beattie/Burrow ‘political handbags at dawn’ spat, then it must be of those policies which want the UUP to resemble the now defunct liberal unionist movements of the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland (UPNI), once fronted by former Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner, or the NI21 party once fronted by former UUP MLAs John McCallister and Basil McCrea.

The propaganda war must be stepped up. Alliance must be seen, not as a traditional middle of the road, progressive and pluralist party of the moderate centre, but as a clear nationalist party which has adopted the political ground once held by the defunct Irish Independence Party fronted by former British Army officer and Protestant John Turnley

The UUP has got to put out the message - the so-called liberal unionist experience to copy the Alliance party has floundered and the UUP needs to return to its natural and traditional Right-wing position on the political spectrum.

Conventionally pro-Union voters in Alliance will see how the party is drifting steadily towards republicanism, and the currently under-fire leadership of the UUP must work to purge the party of this daft centre ground nonsense.

This unofficial UUP was working if the opinion polls are taken into consideration. But if the Beattie/Burrows bust-up continues to fester, the party should remember the old maxim - no one votes for a divided party.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

The ‘Double B’ Rift Has Echoes Of Yes/No Debate That Split UUP

Dr John Coulter ✍ With elected Lagan Valley MLA Robbie Butler deciding not to contest the Ulster Unionist Party leadership against co-opted North Antrim MLA and ex-top cop Jon Burrows, questions are now being raised about the future direction of so-called moderate or liberal Unionism.

With the Burrows leadership coronation set for Saturday 31st January in a Belfast hotel, the strong perception is that the once supposedly middle of the road pro-Union UUP is set to shift to the right-wing and develop a much closer co-operation with both the DUP and TUV in time for the May 2027 Assembly and council elections.

Butler, a born again Christian, a former deacon in an Elim Pentecostal Church and a veteran of both the Prison Service and Fire Service, was somehow viewed as being from the liberal wing of the party conceived politically by the late David Trimble, one of the key UUP architects of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Currently the UUP’s deputy leader, Butler was seen as a continuation of a team of radical moderate leaders, such as outgoing leader Mike Nesbitt, Steve Aiken of South Antrim, and South Antrim MP Robin Swann.

Butler and Co had recognised the significance of the electoral threat posed to the UUP by the rise of the Alliance Party, especially under the latter’s leadership of Naomi Long, the former East Belfast MP, and particularly when Long took the UUP’s European seat in 2019 in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum - a seat the UUP had held since 1979.

The perception is that the Burrows camp wants to expose Alliance 2026 for what it really is ideologically - a soft r republican party and a key component politically of the pan nationalist front along with Sinn Fein and the SDLP.

That perception is that Alliance is no longer the soft u Unionist party it was under the leadership of Presbyterian minister’s son Lord John Alderdice. The Burrows camp is taking the view that many in the moderate pro-Union community voted for Alliance because they mistakenly saw Alliance as a genuine middle of the road, centrist, liberal movement.

The Burrows strategy would be to build closer ties with other Unionist parties to conceive the ideological alternative to the pan nationalist front - namely a pan unionist front.

This could inevitably lead to a realignment within the pro-Union community party-wise into two movements - a socially conservative, right-wing organisation comprising the right-wing of the UUP, the DUP and TUV, and a liberal Unionist movement comprising pro-Union folk who had once voted Alliance plus the liberals within the existing UUP.

The right-wing shift in the current UUP grassroots is further emphasised by the inevitability that Butler will be replaced as deputy leader by co-opted Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA Diana Armstrong, the daughter of former UUP leader and Fermanagh and South Tyrone Westminster MP the late Harry West.

In terms of membership, the border regions of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, which suffered terribly during the Troubles, boasts a handsome UUP contingent.

Indeed, anyone wanting to win the UUP leadership via a contest would more than likely need the vast bulk of the Fermanagh and South Tyrone membership to be assured of victory.

Such was the late Harry West’s influence in the UUP that a pressure group, known as the West Ulster Unionist Council, held as much political clout within the party as the right-wing pressure group, the Ulster Monday Club.

The so-called Burrows/Armstrong ‘dream team’ is the UUP grassroots’ high stakes gamble to revive the party’s electoral fortunes come May 2027.

But what about the tens of thousands of moderate Unionists who defected electorally to Alliance? How can they be won back into the UUP camp, especially among new first time voters and young people? And what about the tens of thousands of apathetic potential pro-Union voters who have abandoned the ballot box completely? How can they be energised to vote UUP?

Liberal moderate Unionism does not have an impressive track record electorally. In the Seventies, the pro-Assembly Unionists spearheaded by the late former Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner were consistently trounced at the ballot box by the combined strength of the UUP, DUP and Vanguard under the banner of the Unionist Coalition.

Faulkner then launched his own middle of the road party, the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland (UPNI), which was making slow but steady inroads into the centrist pro-Union voter base until Faulkner’s tragic and untimely death in 1977 in a horse riding incident.

While the current UUP is to the fore in promoting Diana Armstrong as a female deputy leader, it should not be forgotten that Mrs Anne Dickson replaced Faulkner as UPNI leader after his death.

Put bluntly, after the Burrows coronation later this month, could liberal Unionists like Butler and his ilk see the increasingly right-wing leaning direction of the UUP as too bitter a political pill to swallow and leave to form a new moderate pro-Union movement in any Unionist realignment?

The same could also be said of the Alliance Party between those who are middle of the road ideologically, but pro-Union constitutionally, and those in Alliance who are left-wing ideologically and would favour Irish Unity. If the former faction defected or split from Alliance and joined with the liberal UUP faction, could a rebirth of the UPNI be on the cards?

Skeptics may point to the fate of another liberal pro-Union experiment which crashed and burned electorally before it had even left the runway - the short-lived NI21 party formed by two former liberal UUP MLAs, Basil McCrea of Lagan Valley and John McCallister of South Down.

One criticism that was made of the late Lord Trimble in that whilst he was a tremendous political visionary in Unionism, he moved too far forward tactically without bringing Unionism’s grassroots with him. In the end, it was his undoing in the Upper Bann constituency as Westminster MP.

Since announcing his nomination for the UUP leadership, Burrows has been outlining his vision for Unionism. His challenge will be not to make the same mistake as Trimble. Burrows will need to carry the pro-Union grassroots with him as he develops his vision of Unionist co-operation.

But in doing so, he will have to bring middle of the road Unionists with him otherwise the UUP will see large scale voting, not for Alliance, but for a new look UPNI. However, the electoral clock is ticking. May 2027 will soon come around.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Ghost Of UPNI Could Haunt Burrows’ Coronation

Dr John Coulter✍ The selection of former top cop Jon Burrows as the new UUP Assembly member for North Antrim will hopefully spell the death knell for liberal ‘wokery’ within my beloved party.

I’m a third generation Ulster Unionist. My late grandparents on my dad’s side as well as my parents were party members. I joined the North Antrim Young Unionists, the party’s youth wing, as a teenager in the Seventies. I will soon clock up half a century as a UUP member.

As a political commentator, I am on the radical Right of the pro-Union ideology as the readers of The Pensive Quill, and The Blanket before that, know full well.

Whilst any one of the candidates who put their hats in the ring to replace Colin Crawford as North Antrim UUP MLA would have made an excellent Assembly member, each with their own personal attributes, at least the selection panel has recognised the uniqueness of the North Antrim constituency.

It is perhaps one of the most socially conservative of Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies and liberal woke Unionism has always had a ‘crash and burn’ reputation in North Antrim. Unfortunately for the UUP, liberal ‘wokery’ has polluted the party for far too long and what is needed to cure this political malaise is a very clear Right-wing agenda and direction so that voters are not asking the question - will the real UUP please stand up?

In Jon Burrows we will hopefully get that direction and he will not become politically smothered by those who want to see the UUP rebranded as Alliance Lite, or the reincarnation of the now defunct, ultra-liberal Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

Then again, perhaps the bitter pill which folk like me who are on the Right-wing of pro-Union thinking need to swallow is that we are in the wrong Unionist party and the movement we joined - many of us as teenagers - has changed so radically that it is virtually unrecognisable.

Even if we take North Antrim as a sounding board, liberal Unionism has always been, and will always be, a political disaster for the Union.

In June 1970, I was a primary school pupil finishing my P6 year at Clough Primary School located in the heart of the north east Ulster Bible Belt and a key village in the then North Antrim Westminster constituency.

Only a few weeks earlier in April, a Stormont by-election in Bannside - also located in North Antrim - had rocked the liberal Unionist ‘Big House’ tradition when a certain Rev Ian Paisley won the seat standing as a Protestant Unionist.

For the Commons showdown, the defending MP was Henry Clark for the UUP, also a liberal Unionist. Rev Paisley was again standing for the Protestant Unionists, hoping to replicate his Bannside victory.

His secret in taking on the established liberal Unionist UUP mentality was to create a shotgun marriage politically between two supposedly silent voices - fundamentalist Christians and the loyalist working class.

Whilst I was too young to join the party, I still had a role in that election. The Presbyterian Manse became an unofficial headquarters for UUP canvassers in the overwhelmingly Protestant Clough locality. My job was to serve the salad sandwiches to Henry Clark after a canvass.

As I entered what was affectionately known in 1970 in the Manse as ‘the wee TV room’, I could smell cigarette smoke. I knew that was unusual as my dad had never smoked.

Sitting at the table were three people. In the middle was Clark, puffing heavily on his cigarette. On either side was my dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE (later a UUP Assembly member for North Antrim), and leading Orange cleric Rev John Brown. Both were trying to calm Clark.

The Paisleyites had earlier confronted the UUP election team in Clough bringing the canvass to a rapid halt and a retreat to the Manse. The conversation was about anti-UUP graffiti which had been daubed on the wall of a house in the village. I had seen the graffiti on the way to school.

Clark asked what it was. Dad replied ‘Shoot Clark’. Clark’s face went as white as the large white painted graffiti and not even my offering him the delicious salad sandwiches could calm his nerves that day. Paisley won the Westminster seat with a majority over Clark of more than 2,500 votes.

While the UUP was to later see success at council, Forum and Stormont levels, the North Antrim Westminster seat has always alluded the party since 1970.

After the Paisley defeat in 1970, liberal Unionism has suffered setback after setback. In the June 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election, liberal Unionist leader Brian Faulkner could only scrape a handful of elected members compared to the Right-wing opposition in Unionism from UUP members within his own party, the DUP, Vanguard Unionists and the West Belfast Loyalist Coalition.

The following year, the two Westminster General Elections saw the Right-wing United Ulster Unionist Coalition, or Treble UC, wipe the ground electorally with the liberal Unionist pro-Sunningdale Pro-Assembly candidates. None of the liberals won.

This thumping defeat for liberal Unionism was again replicated in the 1975 Convention election, when Faulkner’s liberal Unionist Party of Northern Ireland (UPNI) could only gain five seats compared to the UUUC’s tally of 47. By the early 1980s, the UPNI had been confined to the dustbin of history.

Ulster Unionism was to further fragment in 1998 following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement into the Yes and No camps, as moderate Unionism lost ground to the DUP, finally being overtaken by the Paisley party at Stormont in 2003 and Westminster in 2005.

Two liberal UUP MLAs John McCallister (South Down) and Basil McCrea (Lagan Valley) later tried to form their own liberal movement, NI21, but it too ‘crashed and burned’ before it even got off the ground electorally.

The real problem with the UUP is that it lacks both direction and policy. During the Brexit campaign, whilst pro-Union voters knew where the DUP and TUV stood on EU membership, the UUP was sending out mixed messages - a fault that was to eventually cost the party its European seat.

The UUP then thought the direction was to compete with Alliance for the so-called middle ground, not realising that Alliance had opted to abandon its image of being a ‘soft U’ Unionist party to throwing its lot in with the pan nationalist front to become a ‘soft R’ republican party.

The dilemma for the UUP, which once governed Northern Ireland for decades since the formation of the state, is that the party hierarchy seems to want to take the UUP towards Alliance whilst many in the grassroots want it to retain its traditional Right-wing roots.

Put bluntly, the UUP will have to re-engage politically with roots who feel abandoned or ignored - the Christian Churches, the Loyal Orders, the marching band fraternity, the loyalist working class, and especially the pro-Union community who have turned their backs on the ballot box.

He may only be one person, but Jon Burrows provides a spark of hope that the UUP can become a significant force in a more co-operative pro-Union family rather than plunge headlong towards more liberal ‘wokery’.

As for the current UUP leadership, either they will start listening to the Right-wing grassroots, or they will implement a British Labour Party-style silencing of anyone who dares to question their liberal ‘wokery’. We Right-wingers in the UUP have plenty to ponder in this summer Stormont recess. 
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

UUP Needs Policies As Well As Personalities To Survive

Dr John Coulter ✍ With the Hallowe’en festive season rapidly approaching, I could have sworn I witnessed the ghost of SDLP founder Gerry Fitt standing chuckling over the shoulder of current Stoops boss Claire Hanna as she delivered her leader’s speech at the weekend party conference.

I know I’ve been diagnosed as being colour blind, but when I closed my eyes, I thought I was back at an SDLP conference in 1974, not 2024. Put bluntly, the Stoops - according to my interpretation of South Belfast and Mid Down MP Claire Hanna’s speech - have ditched the battle to out green the Shinners, and have reverted to the red socialist agenda which Fitt always envisaged for the party.

Last month, we had the remote anointing of Mike Nesbitt for his second stint as UUP leader. Having attended UUP conferences since I was a teenager in the Young Unionists, the UUP of 2024 is a mirror image of the late former Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner’s now defunct liberal Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

Indeed, as a Right-wing Unionist, the party conference at times resembled an Alliance shindig when the latter was run by fellow Presbyterian minister’s son John Alderdice, with all the talk about being inclusive, moderate and liberal.

This month, we had the second anointing of a party leader with Claire Hanna installed in a bloodless coup following the resignation of Foyle MP Colum Eastwood.

Again, closing my eyes and listening to Ms Hanna’s well-delivered leadership speech, I actually thought I was at the annual get-together of the Irish Labour Party. I guess there’ll be no more political treason talk about a merger with Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil in Dublin.

From the turn of the new millennium, Sinn Fein managed to lay the foundation stones for overtaking the SDLP as the leading voice for Northern nationalism by steadily eating into the Stoops’ electorally lucrative Catholic middle class.

The Shinners did so by moving forward whilst at the same time retaining their support in traditional working class republican heartlands. There was also the selection of candidates. More draft dodgers were picked, namely candidates with no known links to the Provisional IRA. Ex-jailbirds were replaced with young academics.

The Catholic middle class swallowed the Shinners’ bait. Gone was the ethos of the ballot box and Armalite, and instead in came the ballot box and make-up bag.

So Ms Hanna’s strategy to rebuild the Stoops seems realistically simple. If Sinn Fein can eat into the Catholic middle class, the Stoops can return the serve politically by re-engaging with the nationalist working class through a more overtly socialist agenda.

The Shinners may have stolen the Stoops’ shirts to become top dog in nationalism, but the SDLP can become a political force once again if it pinches Sinn Fein’s pants.

Ironically, for both new party bosses - Nesbitt in the UUP and Hanna in the SDLP - reconnecting with their loyalist and nationalist working classes respectively will be the key to future electoral successes.

One thing must be clear to Hanna. To try and rebrand the Stoops as a 2024 version of the now defunct constitutional nationalist party, the Irish Independence Party, once fronted by ex-British Army officer John Turnley, will be akin to stepping on a political landmine.

The same pitfall warning applies to Nesbitt. He might wish there was no Unionist Right-wing; he might wrongly think there is no Unionist Right-wing in his party, but if he interprets liberal, inclusive or moderate as converting the UUP into a 2024 version of the UPNI or the equally defunct NI21, he’ll be facing the same situation which sparked his resignation during his first stint as leader.

While Hanna could be clever and build a so-called Red Front with the British and Irish Labour parties through her role as a Westminster MP, the challenge for Nesbitt will be how he uses his post as Stormont Health Minister to build bridges with the Westminster-based parties.

There will always be fine rhetoric from leaders about wanting to build a non-sectarian agenda in Northern Ireland politics which takes voters away from the traditional Orange/Green mentality.

In the 1980s, the pressure group, the Campaign for Equal Citizenship, became a launching pad to try and convince mainland parties, such as the Tories and British Labour, to organise and contest elections in Northern Ireland.

While Labour stuck to its ideological guns that the SDLP was its sister party in Northern Ireland, the Tories eventually formally recognised a series of constituency associations in the Province. But apart from a few councillors and on one occasion coming with a few thousand votes of unseating the then North Down MP Jim Kilfedder, the Tory electoral flame in Ulster has been well and truly extinguished.

With a pre-Christmas Dail general election on the cards following the South’s recent give-away budget, Hanna could score a few brownie points by being seen canvassing in the Republic with Irish Labour candidates. It would make a good political back door into the Northern nationalist working class which is perceived to be the electoral domain of the Shinners.

Equally, Nesbitt’s ability to implement the so-called inclusive UUP as involving the loyalist working class will be the key to success for Mike Mark Two.

If Sinn Fein has a banana skin election in the Republic, Hanna will be on course to strike north. If Nesbitt can help build a pan Unionist front with other pro-Union parties, he will be secure as party leader well beyond his supposed planned retirement date of 2027.

However, if Hanna fails to deliver an agenda among the nationalist working class, the SDLP will go the same way as the IIP, the Northern Ireland Labour Party and the old Stormont Nationalist Party.

For Nesbitt, talk of being inclusive, moderate, progressive and liberal should not be about forming a merger with the Alliance Party.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online.

Have Stoops Dropped Dark Green For Bright Red Again?

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