Under your leadership a profound disconnection has occurred between UUP policy and Ulster Unionist values.xa0 The policies have increasingly become alienated from the values which should guide and shape an Ulster Unionist leader.
Above all, your determination to act in concert with the DUP – over parades, flags and Forum – has significantly contributed to forcing Northern Ireland politics back into the sectarian trenches.xa0 At a time of division and uncertainty in our society, Northern Ireland needed the UUP to set out with courage a pro-Union alternative to the politics of sectarian headcounts.
It gives me no pleasure to say that, under your leadership, the UUP has utterly failed to do so.xa0 Rather than building a confident and generous pro-Union centre ground, you have opted instead to become Peter Robinson’s junior partner.
Your unwillingness to advance the cause of an Oppositionxa0in the Assemblyxa0-xa0what you described in 2011 as the ‘game changer’xa0- has similarly damaged both the UUP and Northern Ireland politics.xa0 You have taken no action or measures to move towards the creation of an Opposition, offering instead merely half-hearted words.The creation of an Opposition would not only offer genuine accountability in the Assembly.xa0 It would also offer an alternative to the politics of the sectarian headcount propagated by the DUP and Sinn Fein.
Your failure to act on this issue has resulted in a UUP incapable of meaningfully challenging the DUP’s current electoral position.
In your speech to the 2012 UUP conference, you described the UUP as “pluralist and progressive”.
I agree – Ulster Unionist values are pluralist and progressive.
Your actions since that conference speech, however, have entirely contradicted any sense that the UUPxa0under your leadershipis pluralist and progressive.
You have abandoned pluralist and progressive pro-Union politics for a backward-looking, insular politics that is in the interests of neither Northern Ireland nor the Union.
The decision to repeat a failed electoral strategy and run a ‘unionist unity’ candidate in Mid-Ulster demonstrates the extent to which you have decided to abandon any pretencethat your leadership can makexa0the UUPxa0a home for pluralist and progressive pro-Union politics.
‘Unionist unity’ is an exercise in the politics of tribalism, declaring to voters that our society is forever divided between ‘Orange’ and ‘Green’ blocs.xa0 It states that all other political issues and debates can be sidelined, because tribal identities must determine our politics.
I find it a matter of great personal sadness that the the Party which I have supported since 1992 is now acting in a manner which deepens and intensifies the divisions in our society.
You are aware that on a number of occasions I have stated that if you led the UUP into electoral pacts or shared candidates with the DUP, I could not and would not support such decisionsxa0because theyxa0are incompatible with authentic Ulster Unionist values.
It is therefore with immediate effect and deep regret that I resign the whip of the Ulster Unionist Party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and my Party membership.
I will continue to give voice to the progressive pro-Union values which the UUP under your leadership has unfortunately abandoned.
It is my privilege to continue to represent and work for the people of South Down.
Yours sincerely,
