the Rise and Fall of the Ulster Unionist Party

junder

Hope this has worked. There have been many comments on the Unionist community and its mindset on this site, most of it ill-informed So i thought i would try and give you an insight into the unionist community. This attacthment is actully my dissertation on the Rise and Fall of the Ulster Unionist Party from just before the creation of Northern Ireland to 2005. While it is a history of the UUP contained in it is a political history of the majorty of the unionist communty. Its not the greatest dissertation in the world primerly due ti the rush it was done it ( i always do like to leave things to the last)

Hagar

Thanks a lot for that. You posted just at the right moment.
OT Isn't the price of Andrex only scandalous?

junder

Hagar wrote: »

Thanks a lot for that. You posted just at the right moment.
OT Isn't the price of Andrex only scandalous?

:rolleyes:

brianthebard

TL;DR

sceptre

Thanks for that. You may well never get feedback from me and it may be a while before I've time to read it but something new from another perspective could well be interesting.

Hagar, please think for a half-second whether electrons will just be wasted before pressing the submit button next time. The universe has a limited supply and we need to ration them to posts that add something to it.

Hagar

You're absolutely right, it was a really dumb post.
Keyboards and drink do not mix.
It seemed funny then, not so funny now.
My apologies for the disruption and inconvenience caused.

Can'tseeme

Trimble was on a hiding to nothing going into government with Sinn Fein 1998. He struggled to cope with the constant rhetoric from Paisley and the DUP and the split in the party. But what also didn't help was that he never really sold the agreement to the Unionist people. He agreed with it but seemed frightened to talk it up. That's the one thing Paisley did different. Once he agreed, he went out and sold it to the Unionist people.

junder

Can'tseeme wrote: »

Trimble was on a hiding to nothing going into government with Sinn Fein 1998. He struggled to cope with the constant rhetoric from Paisley and the DUP and the split in the party. But what also didn't help was that he never really sold the agreement to the Unionist people. He agreed with it but seemed frightened to talk it up. That's the one thing Paisley did different. Once he agreed, he went out and sold it to the Unionist people.

Paisley never sold the agreement to the unionist people, the DUP ran on a no agreement ticket and it was only after they became the biggest unionist party did they go into government, leaving alot of very angrey voters that voted for a party they thought was anti-agreement. Moreover when the DUP were on the sidelines they constantly undermined and attacked the UUP meaning it had to battle on 2 fronts against republicans to secure a good deal for unionists and the DUP to show the unionist community it was not selling it out, not a easy thing to do for any party

futurehope

Can'tseeme wrote: »

Trimble was on a hiding to nothing going into government with Sinn Fein 1998. He struggled to cope with the constant rhetoric from Paisley and the DUP and the split in the party. But what also didn't help was that he never really sold the agreement to the Unionist people. He agreed with it but seemed frightened to talk it up. That's the one thing Paisley did different. Once he agreed, he went out and sold it to the Unionist people.

Trimble did the spade work, Paisley took the crown - naughty boy! But seriously, Trimble's problem was PIRA still had all it's weapons, hard to sell that to The Unionist population. The really interesting question is, did SF want to destroy The UUP and only deal with Paisley? It would have made sense, as there was no one to outflank The DUP and bring down any deal...

junder

futurehope wrote: »

Trimble did the spade work, Paisley took the crown - naughty boy! But seriously, Trimble's problem was PIRA still had all it's weapons, hard to sell that to The Unionist population. The really interesting question is, did SF want to destroy The UUP and only deal with Paisley? It would have made sense, as there was no one to outflank The DUP and bring down any deal...

I actully think it was the british governments intent all along to bring the extremes into the center, blair not only hung trimble out to dry he also insured the sinn fein were coached to say the right thing even including the best way to critize the british government itself, the whole thing was extremely well stage manged

Can'tseeme

futurehope wrote: »

Trimble did the spade work, Paisley took the crown - naughty boy! But seriously, Trimble's problem was PIRA still had all it's weapons, hard to sell that to The Unionist population. The really interesting question is, did SF want to destroy The UUP and only deal with Paisley? It would have made sense, as there was no one to outflank The DUP and bring down any deal...

Speaking to a few Sinn Fein members at the time, the general feeling was that they were never going to get a deal with th UUP as it was in trouble, their mandate was falling, etc. The massive mandate the DUP had gave them a strong position to carry a large amount of the unionist people. Plus as time passes with peace and normalisation, peoples attitudes change and it gave the DUP a chance to make a deal.

junder

Can'tseeme wrote: »

Speaking to a few Sinn Fein members at the time, the general feeling was that they were never going to get a deal with th UUP as it was in trouble, their mandate was falling, etc. The massive mandate the DUP had gave them a strong position to carry a large amount of the unionist people. Plus as time passes with peace and normalisation, peoples attitudes change and it gave the DUP a chance to make a deal.

you seem to be missing the point that the DUP ran on a no-agreement ticket, in short they lied to the people who voted for them, in turn this has left a large number of disaffected people, will it be enough to get the TUV in power problery not, will it be enough to cause the DUP problems and make them harden their stance proberly

Can'tseeme

'Fair deal' I think they were calling for. They were certainly ambiguous.

RedPlanet

junder wrote: »

you seem to be missing the point that the DUP ran on a no-agreement ticket, in short they lied to the people who voted for them, in turn this has left a large number of disaffected people, will it be enough to get the TUV in power problery not, will it be enough to cause the DUP problems and make them harden their stance proberly

TUV?
A fringe party with no seats?
No, the DUP did a fine job mobbing up these fringe groups in the recent past.
I can't see any one of them posing any threat at this stage.
At least not on ideology.

More likely i'd say, is that the DUP have always been a personality-led party.
And now that big Ian is gone, it'll be hard to keep the masses under the one tent.

junder

RedPlanet wrote: »

TUV?
A fringe party with no seats?
No, the DUP did a fine job mobbing up these fringe groups in the recent past.
I can't see any one of them posing any threat at this stage.
At least not on ideology.

More likely i'd say, is that the DUP have always been a personality-led party.
And now that big Ian is gone, it'll be hard to keep the masses under the one tent.

Again missing the point, As somebody who is a member of the unionist community i can tell you that people are very un happy with the 'DUPers' and 'Paisley the lundy' these are the same people who lorded paisley as the saviour of ulster when he ran on a no agreement ticket who now dispise him as one of the 'chuckle brothers' the DUP are going to loose support espically in places like tyrone and fermanagh, it won't be enough to knock them of the top spot but they are likly to lose seats over it and the TUV will make head way.

Deedsie

junder wrote: »

Again missing the point, As somebody who is a member of the unionist community i can tell you that people are very un happy with the 'DUPers' and 'Paisley the lundy' these are the same people who lorded paisley as the saviour of ulster when he ran on a no agreement ticket who now dispise him as one of the 'chuckle brothers' the DUP are going to loose support espically in places like tyrone and fermanagh, it won't be enough to knock them of the top spot but they are likly to lose seats over it and the TUV will make head way.

Could it result in growth for Sinn Féin? If they DUP drop eight seats and Sinn Féin gain one they will be the biggest party in the North.

Would Unionists actually allow this to happen? I know this is a thread about the UUP, but its surely a legitimate question?

There was something like a majority of 63,324 voting citizens for unionist parties over Sinn Féin/SDLP in 2007.

junder

Deedsie wrote: »

Could it result in growth for Sinn Féin? If they DUP drop eight seats and Sinn Féin gain one they will be the biggest party in the North.

Would Unionists actually allow this to happen? I know this is a thread about the UUP, but its surely a legitimate question?

There was something like a majority of 63,324 voting citizens for unionist parties over Sinn Féin/SDLP in 2007.

not a growth per say but a split in the unionts vote could allow sin fein to take more seats

Can'tseeme

Can you see UUP gaining some ground back in the next election junder? Given that the DUP and UUP are singing from the same hymnsheet? What's you're thoughts on TUV?

The next election should be interesting from both sides of the coin. Whether Sinn Fein will effected with their hardline response to the dissidents or will they continue to grow, taking votes from the SDLP.

Deedsie

I have recently started looking at election results across Northern Ireland.

Nationalist would have to take heart in the present trend.

From 1918 - 2008 there has been massive growth in Nationalist support.

By my calculations, there was only 63,000 people more who voted for Unionist parties than Nationalist parties in 2007.

I understand this does not include people under eighteen or non voters who would vote in a unification referendum were it to be held.

Has the decline of the UUP has mirrored the growth of Nationalists somewhat?