Wednesday, May 31, 2006
UUP’s cause for concern…
Although it was written for last Saturday, Alex Kane’s Newsletter column is probably even less welcome today in Cunningham House that it was back then. It speaks for itself.
By Alex Kane
The decision to bring David Ervine into the Ulster Unionist’s Assembly Group has given me more cause for concern, and more pause for thought, than almost anything that the party has done since 1995. Ervine remains leader of the PUP. The PUP is the political voice of the UVF. The UVF remains armed, active and up to their necks in prostitution, drug pushing, racketeering and intimidation. Ervine is a member of the UUP’s Assembly team. In other words, there now exists a clear, direct and formal link between the Ulster Unionist Party and a loyalist paramilitary organisation.
This is about more, much more, than a one-off tactical manoeuvre, of concern only to the UUP’s MLAs. It has created confusion and given offence to a very broad swathe of pro-Union opinion. The party has moved from arguing the case for terrorists to be brought into government, and has, instead, given the whip to a UVF mouthpiece. As David Burnside admitted, the whole thing was “badly handled, badly presented and open to misinterpretation.”
And nor should the party try to justify its actions by reference to what the DUP has done in the past. I am not a member of the DUP. I have never voted for the DUP. I am well aware about the allegations of connections with loyalist paramilitaries and of flirtations with Third Force and Ulster Resistance. So what? What has that got to do with a convicted terrorist in the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly Group? Yes, the move may give the Ulster Unionists an extra seat in a hypothetical Executive, but it is a seat which is now dependent upon the nod of Loyalism’s answer to Gerry Adams. It is a politically uncomfortable and morally dubious position for the UUP to find itself in; and, to be honest, it unsettles me.
But whatever my personal feelings may be about the membership and nature of Loyalist paramilitaries, the fact remains that they have a huge and usually negative impact upon working class unionist communities. So it’s not simply about stating what we should do to dismantle their organisations and erase the false glamour that surrounds their key figures, it’s also about actually removing the deadweight of their malign influence on housing estates and working class areas. In whatever form it manifests itself, it remains the case that the mainstream unionist parties have a responsibility to the thousands of ordinary, law-abiding people who do live in fear in those areas.
Political parties have responsibilities above and beyond that of topping the polls. They have moral and societal responsibilities as well. If the risks the UUP took were worth taking with those who were perceived to be their traditional enemies and opponents, are the same risks not worth taking with people who are from a broadly similar cultural and political background? If you believe that the answer to that question is yes, then you will agree with what Sir Reg has done.
But those who do agree must now pray that the UVF keep their cocaine-stained noses clean and that the IMC is soon able to report positive progress in terms of decommissioning and moving away from criminality. Put crudely, this Jekyll and Hyde partnership depends entirely on the decent Jekyll keeping the monstrous Hyde under control. If he doesn’t, then it seems likely that the Ulster Unionists will disappear into an electoral black hole.
The line between inspired leadership and the madness of the bunker is a fine one and only time will tell if Sir Reg will walk that line with most of his party in tow. The fact that he hasn’t been deafened by public support from his colleagues, bowled over by an avalanche of popular approval, or presented with a UVF Statement Of Intent, would suggest that there are difficult days ahead.
The UUP’s electoral fortunes are now in the hands of some very unpleasant and equally brutal terrorists, whose ceasefire isn’t even recognised anymore. David Ervine needs to prove, and prove soon, than his transfer is worth the fallout it has caused. Personally, I still have huge reservations. I hope, though, to be proved wrong.
First published in the Newsletter on Saturday 27th May 2006
Mick Fealty @ 01:07 PM
An excellent column as was his Hearts and Minds comment on the same issue.
It’s just a pity that Alex hadn’t the courage to repeat his obviously strongly held views on TalkBack today where he capitulated totally when lined up opposite Sir Reg.
He didn’t make one of the points made here or on H and M.
It was all understanding and platitudes.Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 01:20 PMPeking
Agreed. Alex has clearly been nobbled by Reg and the Galloping Major.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 01:24 PMPeking;
Firstly, thank you for the comments re the column and H and M.
My problem today on TalkBack is that I was being asked to comment on what Sir Reg was saying and try and put it in some sort of context. It’s the difficulty of wearing two hats, I suppose.
Whatever may be happening in the letters columns of local newspapers I am not detecting a widespread internal revolt within the party--and certainly nothing like the reaction to “Simply British” and “Decent People.”
There is no immediate threat to Empey’s leadership, although that may be something to do with the fact that all the obvious contenders inside the MLAs signed up to this strategy.
I think there is genuine confusion about why the party needed to do this at this particular time, but again, what I’m hearing is that the grassroots seem to think the risk was probably worth taking.
All that said, it was a huge risk and I’m not convinced that there is a credible exit strategy.
For the record: My personal view is that the party made a mistake with this. I said so when I was first briefed about it and I repeated it at the meeting of constituency officers at HQ 2 weeks ago. Had I been an MLA I would not have signed up to it.
But like nearly everyone else this was presented to me as a fait accompli.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 01:38 PMAlex
Have Reg or McFarland or any party officer spoken to you to express their anger at what you wrote in Saturday’s News Letter?
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 01:41 PMSomeone should wake the bold Alex up and tell him that Unionist Party Links with Loyalist paramilitarism didn’t just start the other week when the UUP tried to pull a flanker in the assembly. Even big Reg admitted to these links on BBC’s let’s talk but apparently Alex and the Newsletter have their heads firmly planted in the sand maybe he prefers the Unionist Party when they denied such contacts.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 01:48 PMAlex’s column was in keeping with his comments at the constituency meeting in HQ. While I don’t always agree with Alex and don’t on this occasion he has a unigue position as an insider and journalist. Sometimes he is inside the tent and sometimes he is outside it usually we don’t know which until we get our feet wet.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 01:51 PMSeems like an awfully leaky tent right now.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 01:56 PMif lady s jumps ship in north down
will the last person left in the uup please turn of the lightsPosted by on May 31, 2006 @ 01:56 PMSir Reg, in my opinion, didn’t sound completely convincing on Talkback.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 02:34 PMGonzo
Sort of reminds me of the story about the man who fell from the top of a seventy storey building.
As he passed each floor, he was heard to say “So far, so good”.Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 02:39 PMGonzo
He was utterly crap. Mumbling, fumbling and grasping for answers. Good grief if Dunseith can show you up, you know you’re onto a loser!
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 02:49 PMAlex
“Whatever may be happening in the letters columns of local newspapers I am not detecting a widespread internal revolt within the party--and certainly nothing like the reaction to “Simply British” and “Decent People.””Maybe the members of the UUP are now so battle weary that they dont have the energy to get too excited about the latest debacle to encircle Cunningham House - maybe the rump of unionists left in the UUP are so motivated by an “anything but DUP” motivation that they are actually driven to support anything criticised by others (particularly the DUP) that they will embrace this move, no matter how disgusting it is.
Maybe all that explains the lack of internal UUP revolt over the issue. However, the external disgust amongst the wider unionist community and UUP voters is very clearly there. Maybe those left within the UUP should be trying to create some agitation internally over this issue. I know they’ve had plenty in the past, but that doesnt mean that there shouldnt be ructions when something as nasty as this comes along.
That’s what I certainly would think were I involved in the UUP.
However, looking at it from outside, there is a further problem it would seem for the UUP. There clearly was/is a gap between Empey and Hermon. The fact that Hermon is the most high profile critic means that there probably are some who dont particularly like her and see this as a way of further isolating her. Alternatively, maybe the entire UUP actually does realise what a disgusting moral quandry they have gotten themselves into and but are paralysed by the fear of complete elctoral meltdown if they actually do try to raise questions about it. However, it would seem that meltdown is the prospect anyway if they do nothing.
No easy answers for the UUP now - they’re damned if they ditch the PUP and damned if they dont. Either way, Empey’s obviously to blame, as are those who surrounded him and gave him cover for the move.
Finally,
Alex, 2 points:Were we in the midst of an election campaign would this whole episode not have been unimaginably worse than either “Simply British” or “devent people”? From what I seen of the reactions to that (albeit not from inside) were that no-one had any problem with either of those two slogans and they were practically universally supported (Burnside aside) until they were conveniently used as the reason for why the election had been so disastrously lost when in fact they were only bit-players in the whole farce.
Secondly
“But like nearly everyone else this was presented to me as a fait accompli.”Was it presented in this manner to the UUP Assembly Group? Were they actually asked for their support or otherwise? If not then surely there are some who can break cover and criticise. If they were asked for an opinion, was it just them and no-one else within the Party? Isn’t that a strange way to do business anyway when it was clearly going to be a big issue. Surely that question alone should be moving others in the UUP to ask how exactly their party is being run under Empey.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 02:50 PMMaybe Alex would care to respond to my question of 01:41 PM?
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 04:15 PMI would just like to say that I was watching the Hearts and Mines programme and i have to say that Sir Reg was the only one on the panel who was being honest. Its about time other parties started to be honest instead leading the voters a merry dance.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 04:37 PMmarco - another one of CunningPlan House/UUP East Belfast Office’s sock-puppets.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 04:41 PM“Maybe Alex would care to respond to my question of 01:41 PM”
maybe he has better things to be doing than checking out slugger all day!
“Was it presented in this manner to the UUP Assembly Group? Were they actually asked for their support or otherwise? If not then surely there are some who can break cover and criticise.”
yes, because the MLAs are such quiet docile creatures they wouldn’t speak out no matter who said what to them...catch a grip.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 04:45 PMhonest about what? honest abot the fact the UVF is group of drug dealing, murdering criminals who should all be arrested and locked up for a very long time? Or honest as in, were greedy bastards and would do anything to get another seat on the executive.
Remember, when was the last time you heard teh UUP talk about sinn fein ending criminality before entering an excutive.
They have lost all morals and principles just to get back into power
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 04:46 PMCraigavonscanary - at last the typing pool gears up to defend the indefensible.
Allow me to summarise your argument
1. Ulster Resistance
2. Red Berets
3. Err…
4. Thats it!Vote UUP - because the DUP’s just as bad as us. Pathetic.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 04:52 PMBTW, I posted my question to Alex within 3 minutes of his original post on this thread. I don’t think he would have needed to monitor the thread all day to see it.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 04:54 PMCraigavonscanary
I was just hoping that Alex could clear up for definate what the mechanism was to decide with/inform the UUP Assembly team of this decision.“the MLAs are such quiet docile creatures they wouldn’t speak out no matter who said what to them...catch a grip.”
Quite a few of them haven’t got the capacity to make a judgement on the issue - as good Ulster Unionists they simply do as “the leader” tells them. I was also trying to see if we could get any info as to how extensive this consultation process was. If it was merely the Assembly Team who were consulted then surely shouldnt more of the Party be enquiring as to why they are so irrelevant. This is particularly the case for their MP (who clearly wasnt asked) nor their non-Assembly Team Party Officers. Should they not consider their positions on that Officer team given that their leader obviously doesnt give a monkeys what their views are.
Its a shame, given that you obviousy check slugger for some of the day, you couldn’t enlighten us with a few more views on the whole subject or at least some semblance of a defence for this whole grubby little mess.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 05:11 PMApart from Cllr Bowles has anyone else spokenout againts this?
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 05:32 PMHenry McDonald once made an interesting point about loyalism. He noted how during the Troubles, Protestants who wanted to fight the IRA could join the RUC, the UDR, their reserves, or a myriad of HM Forces and many did. That meant the pool of applicants for the UDA and UVF was of a correspondingly lower quality (to put it politely). The paramilitaries have long been dominated by unionist society’s underclass: drug pushers, petty criminals, pimps, fraudsters.
I’ll repeat the question I asked on one of the now deleted YU thread that none of the Cunningham House goons could answer: what could Sir Reg possibly offer such people that would make them abandon often lucrative income and the status that comes from being the local hood? Does anyone else know?
Such people exist in other parts of the UK (think Kenneth Noye) where, without politics for them to hind behind, they are (sometimes) pursued by the police to the point of prison. They are certainly not dignified as “excluded people who need to be brought into the political process” as Empty declares about his new buddies. Empty’s thinking seems rather close to the New Left belief that bad people are simply people corrupted as the result of real or perceived oppression within society as a whole.
Meanwhile, as I’ve previously said, the UUP is now the UVF’s hostage. The UVF only has to keep behaving to type and the UUP will suffer death by a thousand cuts as its leader’s judgment is questioned upon every atrocity.
I remember an illustration given at an evangelical youth rally. The speaker, in warning against Christians dating non-Christians, used the following analogy. Imagine, he said, a Christian standing on a chair. The chair is next to a non-Christian partner who is standing on the ground. The Christian will find it impossible to lift the non-Christian to his level but the non-Christian will find it easy to knock the Christian off the chair. To adapt the analogy, Empey will find it impossible to turn the UVF constitutional, but the UVF will find it easy to wreck the UUP’s reputation.
Hard times lie ahead. No wonder the YU muppets are in hiding.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 07:37 PMGiven yesterday’s disgusting event, I imagine that Sir Reg doesn’t have a leg to stand on, let alone a chair.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 07:50 PMHenry McDonald once made an interesting point about loyalism. He noted how during the Troubles, Protestants who wanted to fight the IRA could join the RUC, the UDR, their reserves, or a myriad of HM Forces and many did. That meant the pool of applicants for the UDA and UVF was of a correspondingly lower quality (to put it politely).
An interesting point but flawed. Henry seems to think that membership of the crown forces and loyalist paramilitaries were somehow exclusive.
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 08:00 PManyone seen this:
Posted by on May 31, 2006 @ 08:03 PM
