The
English cricketer Cliff Gladwin's famous 1948 utterance,
'Cometh the hour cometh the man' still holds good
in many circumstances. In the context of Northern
Irish politics the relevant question is what hour
is it and for what has Reg Empey come? He has singularly
failed to inspire since his decision to accept the
poisoned chalice of becoming UUP leader. He could
not realistically have expected anything else. He
has long taken himself much more seriously than
anyone else ever did. In the early 1980s when he
suggested he was the man to bring together the Molyneaux
and Paisley strands of Unionism, the Belfast Telegraph
ran a cartoon showing Paisley and Molyneaux as immovable
elephants, on either side of a mouse depicting Empey
vainly trying to pull the big beasts together. The
Tele had the measure of the man.
While
it is true that Empey inherited a sinking ship,
it is not as if he was left without a choice in
the matter. He knew what condition it was in before
he bought it. Even a time wasting tyre kicker would
not have bothered taking the customary walk around
that piece of scrap. History will most likely be
unkind to Empey, recording that David Trimble was
the last 'great' leader of the party that can trace
its roots back to luminaries such as Carson and
Craig. A public confession that unionism had links
with loyalist militias will win Empty few accolades
outside of some nationalist circles who will see
it to their own advantage to pat him on the back
for his 'bravery.' Others will see it as stating
the obvious, a crude attempt to take some sting
out of the decision to allow the PUP's David Ervine
to align with the UUP Assembly group, or they will
agree with Laurence McKeown's hardly implausible
take that 'it's about denying Sinn Féin an
additional ministerial seat in any revamped assembly.'
Alex
Kane of Empey's own party has termed the new arrangement
the 'UUP/UVF pact' and is unremittingly hostile
to it. Kane went on to describe Ervine as an 'apologist,
mouthpiece and cover' for 'armed, active and unrepentant
terrorists.' He is hardly wrong. Last September,
Peter Hain, made it clear - in so far as any politician
can ever do that - that the UVF had broken its ceasefire
along with the UDA. Nor has the PUP linked outfit
shown the remotest inclination to behave any differently.
Only recently the UVF murder machine was busy pumping
bullets into one of its former commanders, Special
Branch tout Mark Haddock.
Five
years ago, while Trimble was still UUP leader the
Ervine move would have been viewed as something
other than the act of UUP desperation it so patently
is. It would have been acknowledgement of the PUP
having guided the UVF from violent seas to a more
peaceful mooring. Ervine and his party would have
stepped from a paramilitary Purgatory into a unionist
Nirvana, even if only allowed to stand on the fringes
of it. It is a sign of how little the PUP has progressed
and how much the UUP has declined that today the
Ervine move does nothing to haul him out of the
mire and everything to drag Empey into it. Brian
Feeney has argued that Empey could not make his
mind up whether he was going for a goal or a point.
Why he never considered an own goal is puzzling.
Feeney, at the risk of upsetting the RSPCA, captured
it beautifully with his comment that 'the PUP/UUP
link-up looks more and more like a rare example
of a rat jumping onto a sinking ship.'
The
theme tune for the next UUP annual gathering should
be the Talking Heads lyric, 'We're on the Road
to Nowhere.' Empey has given the DUP more room
than it ever imagined possible. The unionist electorate
are not the crowd of bigots some nationalists take
them to be. They would like a deal and are not in
the slightest opposed to 'Catholics about the place.'
Yet, where does that electorate turn if Paisley
and co refuse to deal even under the most auspicious
of circumstances? The only chance the UUP has is
if it can claim back the centre ground in the event
of Paisley vacating it. There is as much chance
of that happening under the leadership of Reg Empey,
as there is of the UVF attending the Clonard Monastery
Novena for something other than to shoot Catholics.
