“We may have to get smaller before we get bigger”
The words of the new UUP Leader, Doug Beattie MLA, echo those of a previous UUP leader Mike Nesbitt MLA, when speaking at a leadership hustings debate in Londonderry in 2012.
His ultimately unsuccessful opponent was John McCallister at the time an MLA, a strong advocate for formal opposition at Stormont and closely associated with Basil McCrea, also an UUP MLA.
Both left to form NI21. Both parties ended up smaller with only one surviving.
The strategy, if that is what it is, may be applicable in the business world where to survive and compete a business may have to contract, shed staff, redundant methodology and wasteful practices; even downsize premises and fine-tune planning and policies.
But is there not something mildly incongruous when a leader, as one of the first actions he proposes, implies lack of consensus in the party and the presence of a non-persuadable cluster; that if people do not accept and adhere to the new regime, they will not be welcome and should go elsewhere?
Parties usually want to hold on to existing and attract, fresh support.
Does it inspire confidence in the ability to lead and build a settled party as opposed to crudely manufacturing it. How do you ensure that everyone who stays is loyal to the cause if they are looking over their shoulder and feel threatened with having to leave a party in which they have invested time and energy?
Should a leader really want unquestioning and blind loyalty more appropriate where individuals are under orders?
The words of Richard Branson warrant consideration and send out a warning:
“If you are small, you have to be the best. You cannot grow …… until you get everything right.”
Getting things right is about more than being prepared to get smaller. That’s the easy bit. The UUP has mastered one but not the other and has a weakness for the white knight- leader narrative where the new incumbent rides to the rescue.
The words of Psalm 20 come to mind: ‘Some trust in chariots and some in horses.”
To grow effectively it has to do and aim to do more than attract disenchanted DUP and lapsed UUP members even where a Lucidtalk poll may signal indications of this.
Political unionism has been engaged in this re-arranging of the chairs on the deck for some time. An underlying reason is one the UUP shares with other unionist parties: ‘If you know what the community is saying today, you know what Unionist parties will be saying in 5 years’ time.’
The DUP, in the form of newly re-modelled emperor Edwin Poots MLA in his new clothes, is a fresh example.
He exudes lightweight corrosive populism and it will be interesting to note how long it will take to revert to type and the comfort zone of demonising the opposition. It appears that Ian Paisley Junior, MP is in a mentoring role. But Stormont is not Westminster and once it is safe to travel worldwide, he could be off somewhere exotic when he’s actually needed at home.
With the UUP now changing leader for the 5th time since 2010 it has a credibility issue.
What seems the normal run of politics internally is viewed differently from the outside. If a party cannot sustain its own governance and stand by its choices without changing the leader every couple of years, is it fit for purpose? How can it get it wrong to just drift along so many times?
Is it to do with personalities, style of leadership, policies or lack of shared purpose; are there structural deficiencies which make it too difficult to build an effective decision-making process and efficient party machine.
It exhibits the characteristics of a party more focused on what it might be landed with rather than what it wants, apart from sustaining the Union which, in itself, seems defined in symbols and cultural pageantry.
Consumed by an overwhelming sense of self-protection and lack of internal trust, it floats between Ulster Home Rule and the sovereignty of Westminster.
When has the UUP ever aspired to providing or contributing meaningfully to government of all the constituent regions of the United Kingdom?
All of these, or the perception that they pertain, weaken and tarnish the UUP brand.
Even if only some of these are true, the new leader will not be short of issues in his in-tray; political challenges notwithstanding.
Doug Beattie MLA must find a way to change the mindset of the party; think towards the future and then find practical ways to make it happen. But it will have to be a future which the electorate is prepared to endorse and stretch beyond the gesture politics of photoshoots at Gay Pride parades to the material lot of the people whose vote it hopes to attract in future.
In view of the history of the party on the issue of marriage equality and gay rights, this presents unfavourably as catch-up and ‘he protests too much’ his gay support pedigree.
Understand better and resign to the past ‘them or us’ in all its manifestations is firmer ground. You cannot keep people at arm’s length and complain if they stay there. There is nothing uglier in politics than an orthodoxy without understanding or compassion beyond its own limited boundaries.
Voters will give such an approach a very wide berth.
The future is not ‘orange’ any more than it belongs to the ‘Irish fantasy -Gael.’ It does not belong to any form of protestant unionism. Nor is it set up for any group to establish political supremacy. Exclusive victory (always a dangerous fantasy) for one side or the other has been, for a long time already, off the menu.
Northern Ireland is not a monolithic community with one lifestyle, one way of thinking. The UUP and unionism generally, may not agree with all views but must defend the right for them to be expressed and having examined its own long term values see what it can offer in return to larger spectrum of Northern Ireland’s people than just its historic base.
The relative peace since 1998, globalism, younger voters and non-voters, many of whom are pro-Union but, encouraged and inclined to think critically on issues important to their future – healthcare, sustainable employment, equality, climate change, cultural diversity, social justice and the role of religion in decision-making – has moved politics on to different terrain.
Many older voters have left the segregated political silos behind to move into the same space.
If these constituencies are to be attracted by the UUP or indeed any unionist party, it has to be through politics for the present and the future, not a past which has been allowed to become a barrier to making Northern Ireland a home that works for all.
Political unionism must face up to the reality that it can no longer maintain an alternative universe through power it does not have; seek to stay connected and not disconnected. Integrity demands that whatever is true must be faced.
From what Doug Beattie MLA implies, it may require some energetic wrestling within the UUP to clear out the misdirected grit, so long seen as a strength.
There is an opportunity in the context of New Decade, New Approach and through the Good Friday Agreement (which the party perhaps ought to remember it, along with its SDLP partners, delivered) and its offspring to show the leadership that political unionism has been lacking; to return to the political moral high ground that unionism has forfeited.
It needs to get itself off the hooks on which it is currently impaled over the NI Protocol, the Irish Language Act and implementing all strands of the GFA. Show the electorate why Northern Ireland needs a UUP.
The route is not an easy one but if it is the right one to shaping positive change, that’s what matters.
Since 1998 the UUP has got smaller against the momentum of events, many beyond its control but more importantly, it has allowed itself to be reduced by them.
In these circumstances, the task is not just building back a UUP that is bigger but building one that is better; to put meaning to this by not merely responding to change but shaping it.
Photo by Free-Photos is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Terry Wright is a former member of the UUP who, in addition to inter- and intra-community activities works independently to promote Civic Unionism.
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