Tuesday 23 February 2010

UCUNF – the Tory wing

Now that the UUP has picked 17 candidates for Northern Ireland’s 18 Westminster seats, the spotlight will turn on the Conservatives who, according to the agreement between the two parties, will also propose candidates for the seats, before a joint committee settles on a final single UCUNF candidate per seat.

Because of the Cameron effect in England (now slightly waning), there is a belief that the Tories are a powerful force – at least as much a part of UCUNF as the UUP.

But the reality is that they aren’t – not in Northern Ireland, at any rate. The Tories are largely an English party, and have little support in Northern Ireland, despite the publicity that their dalliance with the UUP has given them. The constant references to the Tories in the British media have simply disguised the fact that in Northern Ireland they are largely non-existent.

The Tory party has barely 250 active members or supporters in Northern Ireland – almost all in the Greater Belfast area (Belfast, South and East Antrim, North Down, Lagan Valley and Strangford). In the 2007 Assembly elections the Tories polled only 3,457 votes, standing only in Belfast, East Antrim, Lagan Valley, North Down, South Antrim, South Down, Strangford and Upper Bann. The Tories Northern Ireland web site is not even updated any more.

On the other hand, in 2007 the UUP polled 103,145 votes and stood in all constituencies.

So the Tories are supposed to draw 18 proposed candidates from a tiny pool, and to promote them with almost no activists. This is nigh-on impossible. The Tories simply do not have people with either the interest, ability or political experience to mount a serious campaign in Northern Ireland.

Hence the attempts by the Tories to attract ‘celebrity’ candidates – here an ex-Alliance party turncoat, there a Top Gear producer, here a Catholic, there a female Catholic – and so on. But none of them will have a party machine – the feet on the street that will be necessary. Ultimately the footwork, the door-to-door campaigning, will be left to the UUP. And the UUP members will not do it if they feel that the Tory candidates have been imposed on them. If a locally popular UUP member is passed over for a Tory celebrity candidate the quality of the campaigning will suffer.

The Tories know this. The UUP knows this. The Tories need the UUP link-up in order to pretend to be a ‘UK-wide’ party, and the UUP needs the Tory link-up to save it from near-death. But ultimately in Northern Ireland the UUP is a real party while the Tories are a small group of middle-class people who fantasise about living in the English Home Counties.

So when the joint committee comes together to select the UCUNF candidates, although lip-service must be paid to the Tory link, the lion’s share of the candidacies must go to UUP candidates – they represent, after all, at least 95% of the combined UCUNF vote. A 50/50 split will lead to a UCUNF disaster – to the detriment of both parties. So the outcome will be that the Tories will get a run in several hopeless constituencies, and North Down. Where there is simply no Tory presence on the ground – i.e. everywhere west of the Bann – the UUP candidate will get the UCUNF candidacy – though the proposal of a total unknown in East Derry allows the UUP to ‘cede’ this candidacy to the Tories without offending anyone.

The Tories will put all of their publicity campaign into North Down – the nearest Northern Ireland has to a ‘Tory’ constituency, and will use this to distract attention from their absence elsewhere. But even in North Down the Tories got only 864 votes in 2007 (2.8% of the total), and their candidate, Ian Parsley, had a tiny personal vote in the 2005 local elections. The Tories are trying their best to talk up his chances, but if Sylvia Hermon stands as an independent she could sink the whole UCUNF project without trace.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

excellent analysis. the resignation of peter mccann and co have left the conservatives hanging. Duncan Crossey will be in east derry and that's it for the conservs.

Anonymous said...

The appearance of the Tories on this blog, confirmation you're scared of what you do not comprehend.

Garza said...

Well done Mr. Horseman, full of vim and verve as usual, yet so utterly predictable.

"But none of them will have a party machine – the feet on the street that will be necessary. Ultimately the footwork, the door-to-door campaigning, will be left to the UUP."

Correct. But I noticed you left out the Tories finances and electorial machine that is better that the ulster unionists and will contribute to the campaign.

"The Tories will put all of their publicity campaign into North Down – the nearest Northern Ireland has to a ‘Tory’ constituency, and will use this to distract attention from their absence elsewhere."

Source? Or you pulling stuff out of your arse?

"the UUP candidate will get the UCUNF candidacy – though the proposal of a total unknown in East Derry allows the UUP to ‘cede’ this candidacy to the Tories without offending anyone."

And what is wrong with new faces? Let me guess, if the UUP had put forward the same old candidates you would also have a problem with it, wouldn't you?


"while the Tories are a small group of middle-class people who fantasise about living in the English Home Counties."

No. They just want normal politics that is not based on green or orange but left or right. Like what London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Dublin have.

I can understand how the British parties coming over here to compete and the aspiration for an undivided Northern Ireland can unsettle you though.

I can understand how you want your society to fail rather than succeed, after all that is what this blog is about is it not? :-)

Horseman said...

Garza,

"But none of them will have a party machine – the feet on the street that will be necessary. Ultimately the footwork, the door-to-door campaigning, will be left to the UUP."

Correct. But I noticed you left out the Tories finances and electorial machine that is better that the ulster unionists and will contribute to the campaign.


Money is always useful, but unless they're going to use it to pay people to leaflet, put up posters, appear on TV and radio, write letters, and all the other hum-drum then I think people remain a more valuable commodity.

"The Tories will put all of their publicity campaign into North Down – the nearest Northern Ireland has to a ‘Tory’ constituency, and will use this to distract attention from their absence elsewhere."

Source? Or you pulling stuff out of your arse?


It’s a prediction.

"the UUP candidate will get the UCUNF candidacy – though the proposal of a total unknown in East Derry allows the UUP to ‘cede’ this candidacy to the Tories without offending anyone."

And what is wrong with new faces? Let me guess, if the UUP had put forward the same old candidates you would also have a problem with it, wouldn't you?


Do you think that the unknown Lesley Macauley (who has never even stood at local level) will get the nod ahead of the Tories up-and-coming Duncan Crossey? Have you any idea who Crossey is?

"while the Tories are a small group of middle-class people who fantasise about living in the English Home Counties."

No. They just want normal politics that is not based on green or orange but left or right. Like what London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Dublin have.


Then they shouldn't have teamed up with the very orange UUP, should they?

I can understand how the British parties coming over here to compete and the aspiration for an undivided Northern Ireland can unsettle you though.

I can understand how you want your society to fail rather than succeed, after all that is what this blog is about is it not? :-)


Where is this 'undivided' NI? And no, I want NI to succeed, but as part of a united Ireland.

hoboroad said...

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/brother-of-senior-tory-is-guilty-of-misconduct-14695529.html

hoboroad said...

A rumour going around that Tim Collins was rejected as the UUP candidate for South Antrim in favour of Adrian Watson.

Horseman said...

hoboroad,

I wonder if Tim Collins will reappear as a Tory candidate, though? He has links with the Cameronite camp through various neocon organisations, and through Duncan Crossey and David Trimble.

hoboroad said...

He might just do that Horseman but would it be South Antrim? Who is Duncan Crossey?

Horseman said...

hoborad,

I don't know if South Antrim would be his preferred constituency, but it would depend on who else the Tories want to stand elsewhere. Strangford, Lagan Valley and North Down are already 'taken', so where else can a man like Collins go? He'd hardly want to waste his time in a no-hope constituency (and get beaten by Sinn Féin .. !).

Crossey is one of the Tory party's Young Turks. Very well connected in the party in London, and in Cambridge where he was chair of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. He is very close to the leading neocons in the Tory party, not to mention being a vice-chair of the NI Tories. He is already ear-marked for East Derry.

hoboroad said...

Thanks for the information Horseman about Duncan Crossey.

hoboroad said...

I don't think the Tories will be happy with Adrian Watson as a candidate fighting under their banner. What with his remarks about Gay couples staying at his family's Bed and Breakfast. Not to mention his outbursts against the GAA and members of the Traveller Community.

hoboroad said...

Friday’s New Statesman carries a ComRes poll that will make interesting reading for David Cameron. Three quarters of his prospective parliamentary candidates want to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with Europe “as a matter of priority”. And 91 per cent favour a cap on immigration.

hoboroad said...

“Three-quarters of those polled believe that the government should treat civil partnerships between homosexual couples in the same way as it does heterosexual married couples”.

thedissenter said...

Wider contextual analysis into which this post fits very well.

http://www.thedissenter.co.uk/2010/01/there-will-be-an-election-in-2010/

hoboroad said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8535662.stm