Young
Unionists

Our second guest blog contains the thoughts of O’Neill of the Unionist Lite blog.

Cards on the table first of all, I’m not a member of the Ulster Unionist Party (nor unfortunately that young any more), so I will understand if the end of this rather over-long short post you all tell me to go away and mind my own business!

I’m a non-aligned Unionist; for a number of reasons I believe in the continuing Union of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There’s four parts to the United Kingdom and when we (or more often the DUP) speak of safe-guarding N.Ireland’s place in the Union, we must never forget that there are two parts to that statement, there’s no point safeguarding N.Ireland’s status in the Union, if that Union itself no longer exists.

Our first priority, as Unionists of whatever description, should therefore be ensuring that the United Kingdom as a political entity remains in existence. We should be pushing our representatives to have a much closer involvement in United Kingdom politics, fighting with like-minded allies “the politics of the Union”, looking to strengthen east-west ties, looking to directly influence the decisions being taken at the centre of our nation. The second priority is to ensure that any future Border Poll provides a healthy majority for Northern Ireland’s continuing future within the United Kingdom. At the minute, if surveys are to be believed, there is a large majority (ranging from 20-30%) of Northern Ireland’s population that wishes our constitutional status to remain unchanged. Yet, at the last election the difference in total % votes cast between Unionism and nationalism was less than 5%. You should be all asking yourselves the question, “Why?”

It’s actually an easy one to answer. The UUP and DUP presently do not offer a comfortable home for all those who would be in favour of the Union continuing, simple as that. The DUP make no bones about what market they’re concentrating on and that’s the communal Ulster protestant one; look at their website, the articles stress their defence of the Orange Order, social conservatism (e.g. the abortion question) and the constant never-ending fight (as they would define it) against the “encroachment of Irish culture” (be it the Irish language or the GAA). And in terms of that narrow focus they do the job well…but it will not reduce that difference between the number of unionists (with a small “u”) and actual Unionist voters at the ballot box- look at again those election results over the last ten years; as the DUP have gained in strength vis-à-vis the UUP, the total % voting Unionist has remained static or, in some cases, even dropped. They may well be maximising their share of the existing Unionist vote, they are not, however, increasing the total Unionist vote.

And the UUP? What have you done…or are doing… or are planning to do, to mobilise that potential for Unionism? Are you concentrating too much on fighting the “politics of Unionism” and forgetting the wider picture? A hard, but true fact is that you have lost the battle for the cultural wing of Unionism to the DUP- the mythical “Unionist People” (in reality those who primarily believe themselves to be British because of their birthplace, religion and attitude on matters of social conscience) are never coming back to your party. That certainly is of little consequence towards the overall fight for the Union, but more specifically, is that really such a bad thing for the UUP?

I believe not, but only if you maximise the opportunities that are at the moment presenting themselves to you. You have the chance to build up firm links (be it as a merger or as an alliance) with a secular, modern and well-resourced (financially and intellectually) party that operates throughout the United Kingdom. By doing so, you will be strengthening the east-west links which hold us to the mainland and also gaining the opportunity to influence the politics that affect all of our nation, not just our own, small corner. You will be showing to those passive unionists I’ve spoken of earlier, that you are no longer interested in fighting on the sectarian battlefield, presently dominated by the DUP and Sinn Fein, but are, at least, trying to push politics here towards what would be considered as normal in the rest of our nation; those passive unionists are unionists because of economic and social, not cultural reasons and those are the arenas in which we should be choosing to fight Irish nationalism.

For the more pragmatic amongst you, the question probably will be; “All very well, but it will increase our vote at the next European/ local government, Westminster election”? And the answer is a simple “Who knows?” But I’m not quite sure what your alternative is; continue to fight the DUP on their terms, whilst the overall vote for Unionism continues to stagnate? At the very least, by building a stronger link with the Conservative Party you’re going to shake politics here out of its present sectarian stalemate, you’re going to push many people beyond their normal comfort-zone and you’re going to contribute towards a genuine United Kingdom form of Unionism.

And yes, I think, as a rather handy side-effect, it will bring greater success for you at the ballot-box.

This blog will occasionally publish pieces by more than the core team of bloggers.  The first such piece is penned by Chekov of the Three Thousand Versts blog:

Little Ulsterism, Ulster nationalism, ‘ourselves alone’ unionism, you can roll out the pejorative epithets and they perfectly encapsulate the tone of an editorial carried in yesterday’s News Letter. In many ways this piece illustrates tendencies which have done most to handicap Northern Ireland throughout its history and damage the cause of unionists within it.

The piece is a simplistic litany whereby Ulster’s stout defenders are perpetually let down by the perfidious Brits at Westminster. It represents Ulster unionism with the drawbridge up, besieged and confused, with no intention of attempting to alleviate its predicament.

There is no acknowledgement here that unionism itself, by failing to engage constructively with successive British governments, contributed to the various reverses which the editorial lists. There is no ambition to strengthen Ulster unionism’s position, learn from past mistakes, actively strive toward “making Northern Ireland’s status within the UK more solid and binding”.

Cameron is currently offering Ulster Unionists a chance to advance those very objectives. He is making the offer because the United Kingdom is a different place to that in which previous perceived Conservative wrong-doings were inflicted on Northern Irish unionists. The Union is under attack from various quarters and Northern Ireland is no longer so clearly a ‘place apart’. Rather, the attempts of Ulster Unionists to bolster the Union and protect the constitution, strike an increasingly harmonious chord right across the UK.

The opportunity is there for Ulster Unionists, both to strengthen the Union and participate in a modern, revitalised pan-UK unionism. It is no time to heed the voices represented by this article, or those from within the DUP, which wish unionists to collectively repair to a bunker. From there to cry ’sell-out’ whenever political developments, which we have abdicated responsibility for, go against us.