|
It
would appear that after all his torments and woes
of the last few years and months David Trimble has
eventually succeeded in approaching a level of
complete decommissioning. Sadly for David however
it is the UUP he has put
beyond use rather than the weaponry of the IRA.
Trimble
has busied himself this week traipsing around various
media studios in a futile attempt to convince the
public at large that the UUP will be rebuilt despite
the shattering setbacks it has encountered particularly
since last November’s election
and more precisely since the defection of the power
starved Jeffrey Donaldson.
In
a week that saw the dissolution of a UUP branch in
Kilkeel, Co. Down when 26 members
of the party resigned, adding to the 30 members who
walked out in Trimble’s
own constituency in the previous week to follow the
new pied piper of
Paisleyism, Trimble presented a valiant but nevertheless
jaded façade about the
nature of his and the party’s comeback.
For
any party the symbol of their health and continuity
is manifested in the strength and
vitality of their youth wing. In this way the vigour
of strength in numbers provides a
point of pride to the senior executive that they are
doing something right and that they
will bequeath a healthy ideological mantle to those
that follow. Furthermore it shows
to the other party’s that this solid lineage
is an indicator that they are likely to
be around for a long time and therefore it engenders
a sense in opponents that this
party must be treated with the utmost gravity.
Since
the early 1980’s at least, the Ulster Young Unionist
Council has been tantamount
to the political equivalent of the Manchester United
youth academy.
The
last most eminent protégé to graduate
from this school was none other than
Jeffrey Donaldson who chaired the organisation in
the glory days of Ulster Says
No back in the mid 1980’s. It is clear that his
true blue stamp was permanently ingrained
to this society, perhaps even to the level of the imaginary
bloodstains that Lady
Macbeth vainly tries to scrub from her murderous hand. Whilst
still a member of
the UUP and in the run up to last years assembly elections
Donaldson was the keynote
speaker at the youth convention last October. At that
point also he was still
the vice-president of the organisation. Also at that
time the UYUC was the largest youth
movement attached to any party in the north and was
represented at every
single level of the senior party’s decision making
process.
A
more sinister or at best uglier indication of the
far-reaching tentacles of the UYUC was
the fact that it delegated 35 Orange Order members
from it’s ranks to sit on the
860 strong Ulster Unionist Council.
These
of course are all markers that reveal that the UYUC
were not as in other
party’s child-like replicas of their grown up
mentors but walking, talking, suit-owning
and camel-haired overcoat wearing mini Enoch Powell’s.
The
UYUC will no longer be a thorn in the side of David
Trimble since it extracted itself from the ever growing
wound in the UUP body politic by simply dissolving
last
week. The lack of noise about the departure of this
wing of Unionism spoke volumes
about it’s position. Basically they felt that
no further comment was necessary to
illustrate their feelings towards Trimble and the
ensuing death of the UUP in it’s current
format.
More
defections are also expected. Notably amongst these
are former UUP stalwarts such
as David Brewster, who helped negotiate the Good Friday
Agreement and Elvira
Tulip, party member since 1952. Significantly, Tulip
was also a vice-president of
the UYUC and also was the vice-chairwoman of the Ulster
Woman’s Unionist Council. The
defection of notable UUP dignitaries such as these
will only serve to have
a knock on effect. Indeed Donaldson has been boasting
very publicly about being
inundated with a request for DUP membership application
forms, 100 alone he
claims, in the last week from the Drumbo branch alone.
Whether
the current leader survives or not it is clear that
the structure of the UUP will
have to be radically altered in the near future. This
consistent haemorrage of hardliners
must present the UUP with an opportunity to tighten
up it’s lax rules.
The
party is currently predicated on a federal basis, and
is in theory at least a coalition
of local associations. It’s ruling body the Ulster
Unionist Council can be called at
short notice by a conglomeration of just thirty members
which of course can and
often does include members of the Orange Order. This
loose structure is the key
to explaining why Donaldson was able to basically
create a party within a party and
consistently chip away at the authority of not only
the leader but the UUC as well. An
executive body that is at the whim of ordinary level
members is in effect not
an executive body at all.
With
the almost constant convening of the UUC, which in
reality were not so subtly disguised tilts at Trimble’s
leadership, he has been left like a world champion
boxer who
drew his last bout and retained his title only because
he is the incumbent champion. In
other words he is champion in name only, and the remaining
challengers begin
to realise that the hero has a glass chin and feet
of clay. It is unlikely that a
comeback anything short of a Rocky type scenario will
see Trimble or the UUP reassume
a position of primacy in the near future.
To
stave off any similar future attacks of this nature
the reconstitution of the UUP will be there only saviour. Even
party chairman James Cooper has openly conceded that
there is a need to review the happenings of the past
twelve months and then “modernise”
the present structures.
That
Trimble will be welcomed in a revitalised UUP is not
assured. Even he must recognise
that his weakness in commanding instead of requesting
compliance from
figures like Donaldson has cost his party dearly. Instead
of nipping any dissension
in the bud Trimble’s ego allowed him to play
personality politics and
when the time came for decisive action he rushed headlong
at it and acted illegally
with regard to the unapproved suspension of the unholy
trinity of Donaldson, Smyth
and Burnside. All the while of course the DUP were
rubbing their
hands in glee, gathering smug satisfaction and the
more delicious kudos from
watching their seemingly unassailable opponents carve
each other up.
As
a bonus they had the unwitting, or supposedly unwitting
help of a UUP fifth
columnist in the changeling Donaldson waiting to pole
vault the wire into
the Unionist utopia of Paisleyland.
A
word or two must be said about Donaldson’s current
position. Obviously unashamed
about the outstanding Machiavellianism that he used
in wearing the
UUP hat to get himself elected and then switching
party’s and handing the
safest UUP seat in the north to their deadliest rivals. Now
that he has supposedly
revealed his true self Donaldson may find that the
promised land will
not deliver on many of it’s promises, the outcome
of which may reveal the true
validity of Jeffrey’s principles after all. Given
that he joined the DUP on the back
of their hard line attitude towards the GFA, how is
he feeling now as their tone
and outlook becomes softer by the day. Travelling to
the Irish embassy in London
to talk to Ahern is in itself a quantum leap for Paisley
senior. Therefore as
we can all guage the logical progression of this first
step, will Jeffrey end up walking
away from the DUP as well at some point to become
a lone wolf in defence
of Ulster’s slipping crown, he and Bob Mc Cartney
carbines in hand on
the roof of Castle buildings singing I don’t
like Mondays, or will he remain on
board and swap the carbine for a ministerial briefcase?
In
his defence Jeffrey could contend that if the UFF
can travel to Dublin to speak to
the papist Fenian head of an illegal government then
why can’t he?Being of harder
physical material than the DUP the UFF representatives, oh
sorry, the UPRG delegates, must
have reasoned that the car journey to Dublin was cheaper
than the
plane ride to London, especially with all that cheap
freestate diesel, they have also proved
that Protestants as rumoured do not vaporise ten yards
past the Auchnacloy checkpoint.
So
what now for the disbanded Aryan youth movement that
was the UYUC. I suppose if
nothing else is available to wile away the long winter
evenings they should be made
aware that Sinn Fein now accept former RUC members
and they also have a
thriving youth wing!It’s a hard business this
defence of the crown lark.
It
is made all the harder when the supposedly more civilised
proponents of it are involved in a salvage operation
of their own party system. For the doom merchants of
the GFA like myself, scant solace is gleaned from the
fact that the bulwark of mainstream
Unionism has been sliced in two. I’m neither mournful
or pitying about the
death of the UUP, in fact on one level I suppose that
I am almost ecstatic about it.
The
endurance of my happiness about this however is wholly
transient, as if there was a nationalist/republican
party capable of now stepping into the breach to finish
the job off, I would be confident of a decidedly more
rosy political future.
Instead
we are left with a so called republican party eager
to consolidate a mandate to a non existent partitionist
parliament and a nationalist party in electoral tatters
in the throes of a leadership crisis and who are engaging
in nothing more constructive
than arguing with the Alliance party on the nature
of representation and
how to conduct head counts in the same non-existent
assembly.
Still
in the business of decrying the ills of the PSNI, Sinn
Fein’s very own police service roundly savages
anyone accused of dissenting from their line. The next
logical step along the road must be nightly book burnings
and youth classes in
De Valerian double speak. It is hilarious to witness
Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail flail
their verbal whiplashes with regard to accusations
to financial irregularities in
each others camps. Both parties are hewn strictly from
the same rock and not
just in financial terms, the only separation now remaining
is the feigned legitimacy
of sovereign governmental rights, better suits and
cars. Yes, Fianna Fail
need to start catching up!Is there really a point
in this type of mud slinging when
money gained illegally is still dirty and that is
that?Is the point that we all turned
a blind eye to this and blessed it with pseudo morality
when a war was still
being prosecuted on the streets of the north and beyond
the Irish sea?
What
is the difference between Charlie Haughey buying himself
an island and
the leadership of Sinn Fein lending their patronage
to the Gortahork area
of Donegal, or as Ireland on Sunday once called it
Playa-Del-Provo?
Arguments
about the elected government of a sovereign state
like the Republic of Ireland involving itself in underhanded
financial chicanery and the appalling abuse of power
that this entails matters little to the ordinary
man in the street. What care I when and how it was
done?
What
care I about the downward spiral of democratic standards?All
I know as the man
in the street that the money that was “misdirected”
took food from my children’s mouth, wasn’t
there when my job needed saving, and all the while
you kept on taxing me
and taxed me more when you had to pay for the futile
tribunals that investigated who
stole the money in the first place. It was ever so. No
government ever establishes a
tribunal unless it is guaranteed to win. Capt. James
Kelly discovered this in 1970, the
family of Dr. David Kelly discovered this last week, and
the families of the Bloody
Sunday dead will discover this in the future. If the
Labour government were
prepared to sacrifice their national communication
network to hide it’s failings, then
what hope for 14 Irishmen slaughtered 32 years ago
to the week on
the streets of Derry?
Whilst
unionism crumbles before our eyes, in typical Irish
fashion, Irishmen fall out amongst themselves. Sinn
Fein are Fianna Fail little more than two generations
back and
when the optical gauze is stripped from the two way
mirror that they sit on either
side of then we truly will be in trouble. By defending
their own constricted little corners
and ignoring all else, these people are surely by proxy
defenders of
the crown just as much as Trimble or Donaldson.
Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews +
Letters + Archives
|
