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Any ideas as to what might hold up such an agreement?

Raj, your answer is: Lady Sylvia Hermon MP

What, is she against this? I was thinking more of parts of the agreement rather than people who would oppose it. The articles have mentioned that there is 95% agreement, so I wondered what the disputed 5% might be.

Good news and lets hope that this works out. It is surely in the interests of Northern Ireland to ensure that a moderate Unionist voice emerges to rival the DUP and it will be good for our Party to expand its reach.

Jim Nicholson, who is a good man, has been voting with the British Conservative MEPs for years and it is right and proper that he is supported in retaining his seat in Brussels.

How will this be read? I read it from Anglo-Irish ancestry and knowing both the Sash and the Armoured Cars and Tanks and Guns and relatives forced to leave for doing a Romeo and Juliet in the early 1920s.

Stormont is stalled, Paisley has gone but Adams and McGuiness remain and it perplexes me as to how a future Conservative and Unionist party government can maintain any semblance of neutrality if our colours are, in perception if not in black and tan, hoisted to the Red Hand.

Yes, the Conservative and Unionist party was a reaction to Gladstone and the Irish question but the post-Troubles era, a hundred years on from that, should still very much be about reconciliation rather than alignment and the potential alienation of the Nationalist minority. Not just in NI but very much so in Scotland and points beyond.


Lady Hermon should join the party that she supports in 95% of the parliamentary divisions; the Labour Party!

I agree with Justin Hinchcliffe. (Falls over and faints)

Justin,

If Lady Hermon has decided that she is willing to take the Tory whip after the next election and support the Conservative & Unionist organisation, we should take her at her word.

After all, we have a number of our other candidates with past memberships and commitments to other political parties.

Good news indeed, it can only be of benefit to both sides.

As the ban on foreign political donations applies only to Great Britain so that the Sinners can continue to be funded from abroad, will the Tories now also be able to funnel cash from Colombian narcoterrorists if they hook up with the UUP?

As the ban on foreign political donations applies only to Great Britain so that the Sinners can continue to be funded from abroad, will the Tories now also be able to funnel cash from Colombian narcoterrorists if they hook up with the UUP?

Posted by: Martin Keegan | November 20, 2008 at 19:02


Wrong party, sonny, have a chat with The Business Secretary, (unelected)has a good Russian link to this scenario, so he does!

Good news, hopefully SDLP and Labour and Alliance and Lib Dems will do same sort of thing....

I was at the meeting. The only person not to vote for it didn't vote. There were no votes against.

The Ulster Unionist Party will move forward with on voice with the Conservatives.

Such a pity the lib Dems don't stand in northern island. Should do. The ulster unionists only have 1 seat so not much of a pact.

Will the DUP form an alliance with UKIP?

Great news.

This is as exciting as a merger between GM and Chrysler.

I don't think you'll see UKIP Toyota tie up with the DUP.

Seriously, it is a shame for Ulster as the province desperately needs a tax cutting agenda. Corporation tax in the republic is 12.5%, in the economically devastated north it is 30% - meaning that they can't move forward.

David Cameron and his snooty pals have less than zero to offer them. In fact, they will continue to drive them backwards at a rate of knots and will tax us into poverty to pay for it. Sorry to be negative.

This is great. A bit sad that it obviously means the end of the UUP - they will have no MPs and MEPS in future so merger is inevitable - but anything that 'normailsies' politics in Ulster should be welcomed

Anything that normalises the Norn Iron scene is to be welcomed indeed. I do hope that the other mainland parties now consider standing in full, or in partnership, with sister parties in the province. The new electoral rules (as they are of this minute, we know how they like to change under Labour) allow joint-candidatures now under a single joint-ticket name.

A good news story, another step in the right direction for politics in the United Kingdom.

My my Ulster Tory, so niaeve. In Northern Ireland we have more members than you have voters. So it's pretty unlikely we're at the end of the line.

I can remember when the name of the Party was "Conservative and Unionist Party" and 11 out of the 12 Ulster MPs that there were in those days could be counted on to take the Conservative Whip in the Commons. This alas died with the Sunningdale Agreement in the early 1970s. Those votes could have changed the day in February 1974 and kept Labour out.

I fear the old Ulster Unionist Party of such great names as O'Neil, Chichester-Clark, Faulkner, John Taylor (Baron Kilclooney) etc is almost wiped off the Electoral map of Ulster by Rev Ian Paisley's DUP. An alliance with the UUP will avail us little except perhaps a trip down Memory Lane for those of my age and older.

Now had the news been of an Electoral Pact with the DUP, that would have been sensational!

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