Cameron’s ‘odd alignment with the least significant bit of unionism

The Irish News was quick to replace the loss of Susan McKay with the equally impressive columnist, Fionnuala O’Connor, author of ‘In Search of A State: Catholics in Northern Ireland’ and regular columnist with the Irish Times.
In O’Connor’s first article, she examines the possible repercussions of the British Conservative Party’s link-up with the ‘bedraggled’ link of Unionism, Reg Empey’s Ulster Unionist Party, under the bizarre UCUNF label.
O’Connor notes how the move has left the wounded former elite of Unionism a ‘grumpy and divided’ party, and has suggested the move may reverse the British-Irish joint approach of the past decade and more. However, she concludes this
“…may be careless, rather than calculated. Maybe Cameron and company are the younger generation, who missed the bad Irish years and the difficulty of the long hard climb out: the Tory equivalent of new recruits to dissident republicanism, a new set of slow learners.”

Chris Donnelly