Note from Admin: Bill McKendry was chairman of UUP Comber branch and Elections Officer for Strangford, as well as a member of Jim Nicholson’s election team.
Dear Tom,
As you may know, I held a number of senior positions in Strangford UUP until recently. I was a typical member, considering enterprise and entrepreneurship the engines of a successful economy and convinced that Northern Ireland should remain firmly within the UK, participating fully in Westminster politics.
When there is a general election I want the right to vote for or against the Westminster government. At Assembly elections, I want to support a party which is prepared to stand up for a shared future, make difficult decisions and support job creation.
Unfortunately I no longer believe the UUP answers that description. The moves which it made towards mainstream politics have now stalled.
That’s why the letter you received from Conservative chairman, Lord Feldman, proposing a new, centre-right party in Northern Ireland, within the auspices of the Conservative Party, was an offer too good to miss.
You immediately rejected his proposal, stating that you don’t want the UUP to lose its identity. I must ask you, though, why are any of us in pro-Union parties, if the ultimate aim is not to bring mainstream national politics to Northern Ireland?
The UUP deserves credit for helping to secure Northern Ireland’s UK status, but it is time to stop defending the Union and start participating in it. Why not do that through a national party? After all, the UUP currently has no MPs, while the Conservative Party has over 300 and it is the senior partner in a government coalition.
At Stormont too, the UUP struggles to provide an alternative to the dominant parties in the Executive. Would it not be better to leave the current, outdated form of politics behind altogether and instead offer a common sense, centre-right alternative?
I haven’t agreed with all your actions as UUP leader, Tom, but there are some objectives upon which the vast majority of Conservatives and Ulster Unionists can surely still agree.
We all want Northern Ireland to be successful, with a flourishing private sector, rather than an overdependence on public sector jobs. We want Northern Ireland to remain securely within the UK, with people here able to vote for or against the government at Westminster. We want a shared future and most of us agree that personal freedoms and responsibility are the bedrocks upon which democracy is built.
There were many practical problems when the Conservative and Ulster Unionist parties stood on a joint platform, but almost 124,000 people voted for candidates who were pledged to take the Conservative whip at Westminster. Just 12 months later, when the UUP stood on its own at Assembly elections, it attracted just over 88,000 votes.
Surely losing 36,000 voters in a year signals that the electorate does not want the UUP to retreat from a process designed to deliver mainstream, national politics in Northern Ireland? That it is time to take that process unto the next stage? Why not be brave and help move Northern Ireland into a new era, rather than leading the UUP back to the stale politics of the past?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Bill McKendry
Northern Ireland Conservatives
1 comment
thedissenter says:
November 25, 2011 at 3:18 pm (UTC 1)
Where were the 124,000 votes for the joint candidate in the European Election? With the much greater numbers in the UUP membership, what would be different at Stormont with merger? Is this a way for X members to hope a combined membership might dump Tom Elliott: in which case which of the current MLAs does Mr McKendry think best suited to taking forward the ‘new’ centre right party which effectively goes back to much the position of the pre-1972 Unionist Party. And with practically every Party in NI placing itself in the centre ground what electoral advantage would the new NICUP bring?