Dear Member, First and foremost, on behalf of the Party I would like to convey my thanks to everyone for their support throughout this period of transition. Likewise, I offer my sincere thanks to the Party for electing me as its new Leader. This is a tremendous honour, and I will not be found lacking in my determination to guide and stimulate the Ulster Unionist Party’s resurgence. One of the first challenges that we, as a Party, must face is …
One of the less kind texters to Good Morning Ulster on the day after Tom Elliott’s election described him as a non entity leader. It calls to mind that Churchill is reported to have said of Clement Attlee (though he denied it vehemently): “An empty taxi drew up outside 10 Downing Street and Clement Attlee got out of it.” Tom Elliott seems a modest man, again a denied Churchill quote about Attlee: “A modest man, but then he has so …
Tom Elliott has won with a comfortable majority. His supporters will be travelling back home to Fermanagh with a feeling of contentment that it was a job well done. Basil and his supporters can take some comfort from his 31.4% share of the vote, which was in his zone of acceptability. The campaign highlighted the need for the UUP to take their brake off and shift out of reverse. Basil’s supporters will be desperately hoping that the party machine doesn’t …
Tom 643 (68.6%), Basil 294 (31.4%), 937 votes, 1 spoiled ballot
A Pint of Unionist Lite notes that Paddy Power’s odds on the UUP leadership race have been changing. Tom Elliott was once “as short as 1/5 to win, whereas McCrea was the rankest of outsiders in a two horse race at 3/1”. This morning, the gap between the two horses candidates had narrowed to Tom Elliott: 4/11 Basil McCrea: 15/8 As part of their coverage of the second largest unionist party’s vacancy-filling process, the Newsletter set the two candidates some …
As I mentioned in the first post in this series, I’m not a member of the UUP, nor any other political party. So I’ve no vote next week when the members gather to elect their new leader. (They’re meeting to vote at the Waterfront Hall. Postal voting was too expensive to organise … and voting online like many of us do for union ballots and shareholder AGMs wasn’t put in place.) In deciding to interview the two candidates I deliberately …
Having so far looked at matters internal to the UUP, I thought it would be interesting to get the candidates’ perspectives on how their leadership would impact and benefit wider society, outside the party. Basil McCrea wants the UUP to better support the kind of politics he believes the public desire. [McCrea] I think the people have moved on a lot faster perhaps than our political class. There is a thirst out there for more progressive, more modern type of …
Both candidates agreed that the leadership campaign has been divisive. But what would they do to restore unity after the result? [Elliott] At stages it has been divisive. Clearly we’re all big people. We’re in politics so we have to move on. In past times I have differed with other Ulster Unionist Party leaders. But I’m still in the party, clearly because I accepted the will of the majority. [McCrea] It certainly turned into a more divisive and a more …
Given that it’s a leadership election (and not a beauty contest) it seemed wise to ask the two UUP contenders about the difference they hoped to make as party leader. First up was Basil McCrea who is very much running as the outsider, anti-establishment candidate, making a virtue of the fact that most of the big names in the party machine aren’t supporting him. [McCrea] Well first of all, I thought long and hard before I went into the leadership …
For the second post in this short series based on interviews with UUP leadership candidates Tom Elliott and Basil McCrea I take a look at their leadership pitches and their opinions on the UCUNF link-up. Asked for his 60 second leadership pitch, Basil launched into an analysis of past failure and the need for change, describing the type of party be wanted to lead. [McCrea] The party needs change, needs rapid change. We’ve had a number of pretty disappointing electoral …
There’ll be a series of posts over the next day or so reflecting on Basil McCrea and Tom Elliott as they bid for the leadership of the UUP. Both candidates agreed to be interviewed on camera (videos now available) over the last few days and answered a fairly consistent set of questions to see how that would tease out their different personalities, policies and ideas for taking the UUP forwards. They talked about their leadership pitches, the Tory link-up, changes …
Tom Elliott has announced his intention to stand for the leadership of the UUP. He is the first to declare since Reg Empey said he would stand down. Elliott announced his candidacy in the Great hall in Stormont: “While I am proud of the Ulster Unionist Party’s long history and recognise that it was our determination that has brought Northern Ireland to this stage, I am also crucially aware that unionism has changed dramatically over the last two decades – …
