Jon Burrows MLA and Diana Armstrong MLA are now Leader and Deputy Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. Many will ask what the new leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party will mean for the party and unionism. As a member of the Ulster Unionist Party, I cannot tell you the future but I can give you an insight into what this new chapter of the new leadership may entail.
Clarity
Jon’s leadership style is direct, confident and down-to-earth. I have listened to him speak for hours now and he is practical and pragmatic in his approach to issues. Commenting on his aspiration at the time to be UUP Leader, he said: “I want to lead a party that is confident, clear, solution-focused, and whose policies are anchored in common sense and evidence, not ideology.”
Reform of Stormont
Jon often repeats the phrase: “Stormont was designed to exist, not excel.” He is critical of how time is used in Stormont, urging MLAs to “spend less time debating what happens around the world, less time debating symbols, less time debating issues of constitutionality and more time debating public services.”
While he is a new UUP Leader, like previous UUP Leaders before him, he too argues that the nomination process of how the First Minister and Deputy First Minister are appointed is bad for unionism and the reduction of the number of Assembly seats from 108 seats to 90 seats heavily damaged unionism. He wants to “reset Stormont” in terms of how it does business while maintaining the cross-community protections secured in the Belfast Agreement.
While Jon has committed to keeping the UUP in the Executive and Mike Nesbitt MLA as Health Minister in respecting the previous decision made by the UUP Executive to enter government, he does believe Opposition is good in terms of challenging the Northern Ireland government. It is impossible at this time to say which parties will enter the next Executive and which will not after the next Assembly election as all parties would need to know the results of it to make any decision. The decision on whether the UUP enters the Executive or leaves the Executive is made by the UUP Executive.
Relations with other unionist parties (DUP, TUV and Reform UK)
Similar to previous UUP Leaders, Jon is critical of the DUP and TUV for supporting Brexit to the point of it putting Northern Ireland’s place in the union at risk. He considers it a “strategic mistake” and declared that if the main proponent of Brexit, Nigel Farage, became Prime Minister, it would be a “disaster.” Jon also disagrees with collapsing Stormont, believing that unionists must work with nationalists to make Northern Ireland a better place.
For these reasons among others, while Jon wants to maximise the number of unionist representatives, he is sceptical of how this would work in practice given the policy differences between the different unionist parties. He says “there still has to be choice. I still want to grow and offer something different and better for the people of Northern Ireland.” Jon wants the UUP to be the leading party of unionism again even if it co-operates with different unionist parties at different times in the best interests of Northern Ireland, cautioning that he will “not be naive – we’ll enter [unionist co-operation discussions] in good faith, but ‘trust but verify’ is a good mantra. It’s been a good mantra for me for many decades and I’ll continue that in politics.”
Liberal vs Conservative?
Media coverage of who would be the next UUP Leader centred on it being a battle between liberalism and conservatism within the party but I’m not sure where this comes from. I joined the Ulster Unionist Party in 2013 when Mike Nesbitt was Leader for the first time and from that time and now, we have always been a centre-right, conservative, unionist party. Yes, on social issues, we take different stances but this is accommodated within UUP policy that we all signed up to and it will not be changed. A leadership contest would have been useful to go into detail of any policy differences but it didn’t happen as only Jon Burrows and Diana Armstrong were nominated for Leader and Deputy Leader to be unanimously approved by the party.
Although Jon is the new Leader of the UUP, he also provides continuity in adhering to many existing, long-standing UUP policies as I have written about it. Even Jon himself said on remarking why he joined the UUP, that he believed “in its unique blend of passionate unionism and pragmatic politics… rooted in a deep sense of duty, selflessness and service to the people of Northern Ireland, always committed to doing what is right for them.” (“Doing what’s right for Northern Ireland” was Mike Nesbitt’s slogan during his first time as Leader between 2012 – 2017)
Future of the UUP
If the media narrative of liberal vs conservative is inaccurate, I suggest the answer is elsewhere. Jon promises a “new chapter” of “fresh energy” and “renewal” for the UUP, in that he will engage with UUP members in formulating policy and will try to make unionist representation more reflective of those it represents. He commits to “providing the leadership that unionism needs… being sure-footed…and not making strategic mistakes… to strengthen the union in the long term.”
Jon Burrows MLA is the fifth UUP Leader I serve under as a UUP member. I look forward to him writing more of his “new chapter” for our party. This is an exciting time for the UUP as we begin our journey of renewed, pragmatic and confident unionism!
Michael Palmer holds a degree in Politics from Ulster University and is interested in political ideology, the politics of popular culture and wrote a dissertation on unionism/loyalism. He is a member of the Ulster Unionist Party in Ards and North Down.
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