UUP still 'majority' party says UU academic

Following US Senator Bill Flynn's criticisms of UUP leader David Trimble last week as a "weak" defender of the Good Friday Agreement, a University of Ulster academic has predicted that the UUP will not play second fiddle to the DUP at the coming elections.

With the devolved institutions suspended and Good Friday Agreement in limbo, Professor Henry Patterson, Professor of Politics, argued that David Trimble’s brand of “pragmatic politics” and "qualified support" for the power-sharing arrangements of the Good Friday Agreement is still more in line with "majority thinking" within the Protestant community than is perceived.

Currently assembly elections are scheduled for May 1, however, the outcome of the Hillsborough negotiations may see that date pushed back so that all outstanding issues can be resolved. Nonetheless, the UUP leader said today that the party was "ready" to fight May elections.

Speaking at a conference in Belfast – as the British and Irish Governments and pro-agreement parties continued talks – Professor Patterson said that the Ulster Unionists face "an increasing electoral challenge" from the DUP, growing scepticism from within the Protestant community about the Agreement and a fall in support for the Agreement from within the Ulster Unionist Council.

“It is quite possible that if elections are held in May without an agreement that Trimble can sign up to, and that would require a ‘seismic shift’ by republicans, the UUP will be displaced as the pre-eminent unionist party," he said.

“However this is not by any means the only possible outcome. The Agreement and its centrepiece – devolved and inclusive institutions – are not inevitably doomed.”

He pointed out that recent research shows that a majority (60%) of Protestants still want the Agreement to work. Significant numbers also believe that violence would increase and future prosperity would fall if the Agreement was brought to an end.

However, Professor Patterson warned that the race for dominance between the two main unionist parties is "tight" and that even if republicans made a dramatic move on arms and ending paramilitary activity, "the beneficial effects of such moves to the Ulster Unionists might not be apparent if new Assembly elections go ahead in May as scheduled".

(GMcG)