The Limits of "New Unionism": David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party

Abstract

ACADEMIC DISCUSSION of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is still thin on the ground. Since John F. Harbinson's pioneering history appeared in 1973, (1) there has been only one serious academic study of the party. (2) The academic writing that has been done on mainstream unionism has tended to focus on it as an ideological tradition. Important work has been done here starting with Jennifer Todd's path-breaking article. (3) However, ideology is only one dimension of any attempt to produce a comprehensive analysis of contemporary unionism. Parties play an essential role in the development and propagation of ideologies; they are the essential mediators between the ideological realm and that of politics and government. In the case of unionism, much of the academic discussion that has occurred has tried to identify those components of unionist ideology that would be most conducive to the forging of some sort of political accommodation with nationalists and republicans. Various sources of or civic unionism have been identified, but these have tended to be defined as intellectual currents or if they have a party political basis to be sought among the fringe political formations of unionism. One recent analysis of unionism and the peace process, for example, focuses almost entirely on the role of the small loyalist parties linked to paramilitaries and Dr. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party. (4) Despite the crucial role that the members of the Ulster Unionist Party played in attempting to work the new dispensation in Northern Ireland created by the Belfast Agreement, knowledge of that party is still extremely limited. What follows uses the Ulster Unionist Assembly Party as a prism through which to analyze the undoubtedly radical shift in unionist strategy initiated by the leader of the UUP. ********** DAVID TRIMBLE'S PROACTIVE UNIONISM Held on a bleak November day in 2003, the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly marked the end of the Ulster Unionist Party's (UUP) almost century-old political hegemony within Ulster's Protestant community. Although its vote increased slightly compared to the previous Assembly elections in 1998, the more hard-line Democratic Unionist Party surged ahead on a wave of Protestant disillusion with the out-workings of the Belfast Agreement. (5) The end of the UUP's political hegemony also marked perhaps the final phase of the leadership of David Trimble and his proactive and modernizing project. In the 1995 leadership contest that followed the resignation of the then leader of the UUP, James Molyneaux, Trimble was seen as the most articulate and dangerous candidate of the right. In large part, this reflected his role in the major confrontation between the security forces and the Portadown Orangemen who were blocked from marching down the largely Catholic Garvaghy Road after their annual service at Drumcree Church. As tens of thousands of Orangemen from all over Northern Ireland came to give support and others blocked roads and the port of Larne, Trimble, in whose constituency the conflict was taking place, was intensively involved in trying to resolve the issue. However, the positive role he played in bringing the stand-off to a peaceful conclusion was all but obliterated when he joined with Ian Paisley in greeting the returning Orangemen in the center of Portadown in what many perceived as a display of triumphalism. (6) His role at Drumcree would have appealed to the many Orangemen who were delegates to the ruling body of the party, the 850 person Ulster Unionist Council that elected Molyneaux's successor. Yet those in the upper reaches of the Northern Ireland Office who were aghast at Trimble's election misread both the man and the circumstances of his victory. In a party as bereft of intellectual ballast as the Ulster unionists, it was no great compliment to Trimble to point out that he was by far the most cerebral of the candidates for the leadership. …