Ulster Unionist Party

Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) (Northern Ireland) The term ‘Unionist’ became prominent in British politics in 1886 when Lord Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain formed the Liberal Unionists and allied with the Conservative Party. They were committed to maintaining the union of Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom. As the issue remained at the centre of British politics, Conservatives and Liberal Unionists became known simply as ‘Unionists’. When Ireland was partitioned in 1921, Conservatives in Northern Ireland became known as the Ulster Unionist Party, and later the Official Unionist Party. This party formed the government at Stormont from 1921 until 1972, but it was subject to much internal tension from the 1960s, which resulted in Ian Paisley forming the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in 1971. The party was deeply divided over Faulkner's support for power-sharing, and he was replaced as leader in 1974 by Harry West. It faced opposition from a variety of other (mainly more hardline) Unionist groups in the 1970s, when it maintained its support for majority rule. James Molyneaux became party leader in 1979, and together with Ian Paisley he vigorously opposed the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

In 1991 the UUP entered inter-party talks, and it did not oppose the 1993 Downing Street Declaration. David Trimble replaced Molyneaux as party leader in 1995. In general elections in the early 1990s, the UUP won around 35 per cent of the vote in Northern Ireland, and about ten seats in the British Parliament. However, its share of the vote dropped to 24.17 per cent in the elections of delegates to all-party peace talks in Northern Ireland (30 May 1996), with much support shifting to the more radical DUP. After the UUP received 21.3 per cent of the popular vote and 24 out of 108 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998, Trimble became Northern Ireland's First Minister. The party continued to lose ground amongst its Protestant core over its preceived inability to deal with the IRA's equivocation in keeping the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. At the 2003 Assembly elections, its vote stabilized, but its result was eclipsed by that of the DUP, whose vote had increased sharply. The party was further weakened by subsequent defections of high-profile party members to the DUP.

http://www.uup.org