The
UUP is not serious about regaining its hegemonic
status within unionism. Its new leader, Reg Empey,
will play a role more like Michael Foot or William
Hague - ants who keep the leaf afloat on its journey
across river but who are destined never to set foot
on the other side.
Had
the UUP hinted that its vital signs were still functioning,
the charismatic Tim Collins flushed with success
from his military forays, would have thrown his
helmet into the ring. Empey, well, the expectation
of him is that he put a smile on the face of the
corpse, not resuscitate it. He is no Jack Lynch,
even less a Konrad Adenauer. The leader after him
will provide a better window through which to observe
what forward momentum, if any, the UUP possesses.
Empey
is hamstrung by an inability to disguise an essentially
careerist approach to politics. As part of the 'lost
generation' of unionism which failed to fulfil its
ambitions for office with the 1972 collapse of Stormont,
his complaint to Arlene Foster in the run up to
the Good Friday Agreement that 'another chance like
this won't come along for me' suggested a risqué
eagerness for the trappings of office. His later
marked reluctance to endorse even a one day suspension
of the Stormont executive confirmed he was the man
to lead unionism - from Sinn Fein's point of view.
The Adams led party like men who are putty in their
hands.
Such
a dubious attribute won him the praise of Mairtin
O'Muilleoir. For that reason it will not win him
the confidence of the unionist community who swept
the DUP into poll position because it had long tired
of the vacillation which, in its mind, gripped the
UUP leadership.
Only
if the DUP go into government with a militia linked
Sinn Fein will space open up for the UUP into which
it can strategically insert itself on the condition
that it does so under a leader more purposeful than
Reg Empey.
