Everything Ulster - Election 2005

... at least according to David Burnside, UUP candidate for South Antrim and widely tipped as a potential successor to David Trimble for the leadership. Burnside seems to suggest that his UUP should merge with the DUP.

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Today, Burnside is quoted on BreakingNews.ie as saying:

"Unionists should be working together to defeat the criminal empire of Sinn Féin/IRA and indeed the loyalist organisations.

After the General Election we should be working together. There is no point in having two small groupings in the Westminster and we need a united front.

I firmly believe that there will be united unionism post-Paisley and post-Trimble. There will be a realignment and I would prefer a merger."

The question is whether a merger would be good or bad for Unionism. Would the lack of choice drive down the already low turnout in unionist constituencies, or would the single unified voice reach out and encourage more unionist voters to stand up and be counted? Personally I would be disheartened if there was a lack of choice, particularly if this new united unionist party was to remain on the more fanatical extreme end of the political spectrum which seems to be favoured by voters at the minute. It could just end up driving more voters towards the Alliance party, including, potentially, myself.

Even beyond the simple matter of whether or not unionists win more seats, would it be good or bad for the future of unionism as a whole if there was only one major party representing it? The presence of a single dominant party could potentially stifle any debate concerning the future direction of unionism in order to show a united front. Alternatively, it could encourage debate on the future as unionists finally stop wasting time on trying to do down their fellow-unionists with UUP/DUP infighting and bickering, which seems to take up more and more of their time lately.

The worst possible scenario would be for unionists to merge into a 'DUP anf friends' where a number of UUP members simply join the DUP. This would be a disaster for already strained relations in this country and could easily be taken by nationalists as justification for voting for Sinn Fein rather than the SDLP. Although who knows, in time the fact that the DUP is the only Unionist party could mean that more moderate people would join and drag the party back a little towards the centre - but I won't hold my breath.

I realise it's a long shot but endulge me for a moment. What if this merger finally paved the way for the growth of the Conservative party (or to give the party it's formal title, Conservative and Unionist Party) in Northern Ireland? I've long wished to see the Conservatives poll better in local elections, both to council and Westminster, though the latter seems almost impossible to consider - they're only standing in 3 seats so far as I know. But Unionists have never (for the past 40 years anyway) been able to stay united for long - what if the Conservatives could move in and try and snap up some of the inevitable dissenters from this monolithic party?

It would be a shame to lose the Unionist party which has fought to keep Northern Ireland in the UK for 100 years now, or is it time that we dropped the baggage associated with the marginilisation of Catholics from political life in Northern Ireland in the first 50 years of the state's existence and looked Unionism to offer us something new in the 21st century?