Choose a leader with honour

Editorial Department • Published 3 Sep 2010 09:00 0 Comments

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Dear Sir, - As a Fermanaghman, an Ulsterman and an Irishman, in exile, I would like to say how excited I was to read, in last week’s issue of your paper, Rodney Edwards’ article about the forthcoming choice of a new leader for the UUP. My excitement is due, in part, to the fact that I regard myself as a friend of Tom Elliott: I hope that some of your readers, having finished my letter, won’t revive the old joke: With friends like that, who needs enemies?”!

My excitement is due also, however, to the thought that the UUP must be proud that it can attract, as candidates for its leadership, two men of the calibre of Tom Elliott and Basil McCrea. Representing, as they do, Unionism on both the East and the West sides of the Bann, they give a broad perspective of the party in the province as a whole.

Rodney Edwards presents the candidates as “two men of very different personalities”. It would be a mistake, however, to overlook the similarities of outlook of both candidates. Perhaps the most important of these is the fact that both men mistrust the concept of Unionist Unity between the UUP and the DUP. This mistrust is due not just to the disappointing result in the election earlier this year, in which the UUP failed to win a single seat. Both candidates give good reasons for their mistrust. According to Mr McCrea, what you actually get with Unionist Unity is Republican Unity and you saw that with the shredding of the SDLP vote in Fermanagh South Tyrone.” Mr Elliott’s emphasis is different, but equally well-grounded: “I want to see the entire electorate treated with respect - not treated for the convenience of the elected”. His next sentence reads: “Tom Elliott doesn’t do dynasties”. Readers will recognise the importance of such a statement in view of the fact that the government of Northern Ireland for the first fifty years of its existence was a dynasty, and a Unionist dynasty at that.

Some readers may find the emphasis placed by Basil McCrea on the need to “engage with local people” in Fermanagh somewhat brash, especially in view both of Tom Elliott’s well-founded claim that he knows “what it’s like to be a grassroots member” of the UUP, and in view also of the widespread recognition of the sterling work he has done in local government and as an MLA.

Nevertheless, it is hard to deny that some of Basil McCrea’s statements will strike a special chord with the people of Fermanagh and, indeed, of Ulster as a whole. Take, for example, the following: “The big problem with politics at the moment is that a lot of the electorate have become disillusioned with politics and politicians. The only way that I can find that gets people enthused about things is direct contact .....It’s all about winning new people over and getting them enthused about politics. Fermanagh is very important to me”. He’s surely right when he says: “the population is looking for a modern and progressive party that is going to deal with the concerns that they have, rather than shout at each other”.

Compared with this, some of Tom Elliott’s utterances sound not only tame and unadventurous, but even unnecessary. No one can quibble with his list of “Ulster Unionist values”, still less with the fact that Tom illustrates these values in every aspect of his being. But is it really necessary any longer to put such an emphasis on the need to “strive for the development and enhancement of the union, ....to bring Ulster unionism back to the fore ...”? Tom goes on to put this emphasis even more strongly still: “I have a vision to develop a settled mindset of the people of Northern Ireland that they are content to be part of the union, not just unionists but non-unionists”. But surely Ulster’s status as part of the United Kingdom is an assured political fact, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Attempts by dissident minority groups to alter this status quo, though undeniably an irritant and a serious waste of the security forces’ time, are doomed to failure.

It would be a great pity, however, if Mr Elliott’s talk about a “settled mindset” were to lead members of the UUP, and especially members of the other political parties in Ulster, to conclude that the UUP under his leadership was unlikely to be open to the need for fresh thinking about the legacy of Ulster’s past which has led to so much suffering, and which, even now, causes widespread concern well beyond these islands. The new leader of the UUP must recognise that his stance on these issues will help to determine the attitude towards them not only of his own members, but also of the leaders and members of the other political parties with which he has to work for the good of Ulster as a whole.

It must be the hope of all of us that the UUP members who meet in Belfast on September 22nd to choose their new leader will honour the best hopes and aspirations of both candidates.

Yours sincerely,

Henry Richmond.

This letter appeared in Impartial Reporter 02 Sep 10

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