DUP MLA for Strangford, Michelle McIlveen has responded to the decision last night by the UUP Executive to support merger with the Tory Party and the establishment of a joint selection committee for European and Westminster elections. Speaking today Michelle McIlveen said:
“I congratulate Reg Empey for finally managing to secure a political marriage. We have all watched with slightly bemused embarrassment, the repeated attempts of the UUP to get hitched, first to the PUP, then to the Tories and latterly to the TUV. Now at last it seems that wedding bells are in the air.
Reg Empey’s decision to merge the Ulster Unionists with the Tories in this fashion raises several interesting questions. David Cameron has indicated it is his intention to fight every single seat in Northern Ireland. Presumably the Tory Party members of the joint selection committee agree with what Mr. Cameron has said. Does Reg Empey? Will he support running candidates in every seat in Northern Ireland even if it means losing Fermanagh and South Tyrone and South Belfast to anti-Unionist parties?
Furthermore, he has opted to merge with a party whose leading members have made openly offensive remarks about key elements of the Unionist family. Who will forget Jeffrey Peel’s infamous description of the Orange Order as a “backward facing parish pump society”? Certainly not members of the loyal orders or their families when they go to vote. Will such thinking be a factor in picking UUP/Tory candidates? If so Orangemen and women need not apply.
The way in which Unionism can best be advanced and protected is through winning friends in all parties at Westminster. I know that there will be many members of the UUP who will be searching their souls today because of what Reg Empey has done. I would remind them that the DUP is actively working to unite the Unionist community and further secure Northern Ireland’s place inside the United Kingdom.”
