A Tangled Web

The Counter Revolution



"Cheer up - the worst is yet to come." This may become the rallying cry at the next AGM of the UUP!



In a thought-provoking essay published in the Newsletter (3rd January 2004), Alex Kane details the problems which he believes besit the Ulster Unionist Party. Principally, these coalesce around the troubled "leadership" of David Trimble and his ability (or lack of it) to direct his Party.



Alex Kane is well positioned to understand - up close and personal - the problems that besiege Trimble, and in fairness tries to put forward radical recommendations as to where the Party should go to. He calls for a "cultural revolution" - and he is right - but NOT, I contend, for the reasons he suggests.



Lying at the heart of all this (to coin a phrase close to Trimble's heart) is "constructive ambiguity." Ever since the Agreement became holy writ, Trimble has danced around claiming that he NEVER agreed to the stream of paramilitary and IRA specific concessions that flowed from it. Over the years, this political dishonesty has become more obvious and resulted in the gradual slump in UUP fortunes. Put simply, only the devout within the UUP swallow their glorious Leaders illusions.



This became manifest in the Assembly Results last year. But what does it mean for the UUP?



It is apparent that those whom Trimble commands loyalty from no longer put the Union first. They have been spiritually gobbled up in the mesmeric but vacuous rhetoric of the "peace process" and should follow the logic of their position and stop calling themselves Unionists. I have met these people, on the doorstep, and heard them put fealty to Trimble first. In essence these people would endorse a United Ireland if that "smart" Mr. Trimble told them to do so. These are the Vichy set.



The idea that the UUP lost votes at the election because it had prominent anti-Agreement voices such as Jeffrey Donaldson may indeed be true. Perhaps more pro-Agreement candidates would have be granted more Republican preferences? Some of this, in key constituencies, could even be first preferences. Again, however this invalidates the notion of the UUP continuing to call itself "Unionist."



If the UUP was a business, to use the analogy of Jim Rodgers, the Board of Directors would be unemployed because it would have gone under for misrepresenting what it sells. Such criminal abandonment of principle is not seen as a problem by the Directors however - but the accompanying loss of financial income may cause some pain!



Unionism is anti-Agreement and is coalescing around the DUP position. There is no future for the UUP because it now values the Agreement more highly than the Union. Having been tested by its time as largest Party, it has failed. That is the reason why it should re-badge itself New Alliance and hope to God (or whichever secular force it recognises) that the mythical garden centre prods come out in their droves come the glorious day. Viva la revolution!