- The Observer, Sunday December 7 2008
David Cameron pledged yesterday that as Prime Minister he would defend the Union and said he would want Ulster Unionists in his government.
Addressing the Ulster Unionist party's annual conference in Belfast, the Conservative leader said: 'I have never been a Little Englander.'
To wild applause from nearly 700 UUP delegates, Cameron promised that Northern Ireland MPs would soon 'have a real prospect of holding office as ministers in a Westminster government'. Cameron's speech, on his third anniversary as Tory leader, consolidated the ties between the Tories and the UUP. The parties will field joint candidates in Northern Ireland at the next European and Westminster elections.
Tory strategists - including former UUP leader David Trimble, now a front bench Tory peer - favour the alliance because it lets Cameron say his party has 'planted the flag' throughout the UK.
To allay fears of Dublin and nationalists about a Tory government's Northern Ireland policy, Cameron said: 'As Prime Minister, I will always honour Britain's international obligations. I will continue to work closely and constructively with our nearest neighbours in the Republic of Ireland and I will always uphold the democratic wishes of people here in respect of their constitutional future.'
He added: 'But I will never be neutral when it comes to expressing my support for the Union. I passionately believe in the Union and the future of whole of the United Kingdom. We're better off together - England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland - because we all bring our strengths to the mix.'
Although Cameron stressed he supported devolution in Northern Ireland, including the transfer of policing and justice powers to the Assembly, he vowed to end Northern Ireland MPs' lack of access to office on national questions such as taxation and foreign affairs - on which the Assembly has no power.
'As things stand, Northern Ireland MPs need to be involved in decisions about their lives that are not devolved. I want the most talented people to form my government and that will mean people from all corners of the UK. Why are there great Ulstermen and women on our television screens, in our boardrooms and in our military but not in our Cabinet? The semi-detached status of Northern Ireland politics needs to end. This is not true representative democracy and it has got to change.'
Cameron described the evolving relationship between the Tories and the UUP as a 'dynamic new political force' that would revive democracy in the UK.
At one of the best-attended UUP conferences in years, Cameron said there were no longer any 'no no-go areas' in the United Kingdom for the Conservatives.
The Tory leader also paid tribute in his speech to the Irish and American governments for their role in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Backing Cameron's call for a Tory-Ulster Unionist alliance, Sir Reg Empey, the UUP leader, told the conference he was confident a Conservative government would not be a 'neutral observer' of events in Northern Ireland.
'At a time when the constitutional integrity of the Union and the United Kingdom is being challenged by a variety of regional nationalisms, how fitting that the Ulster Unionists and the Conservatives - the two longest serving parties in the UK as it happens - should again come together to forge a common identity and shared values,' Empey said.
He added that an alliance would widen unionism's appeal beyond its traditional base: 'I want to make a case for the Union which is based on socio-economic and constitutional arguments rather than just background and upbringing.'
Most of the audience at Belfast's Ramada Hotel appeared to favour the alliance, but some veteran UUP members from working-class constituencies said they opposed it. Chris McGimpsey, a former honorary secretary of the party and a member for 40 years, called it 'absolute bonkers'.
The left-leaning former councillor for Belfast's Shankill Road added: 'It's an appalling vista and I don't think the Ulster Unionist party as we have known it will survive. Ulster Unionism has to keep in touch with its roots and we have been doing that lately. We were winning by-elections, we were on the way back. But instead the leadership panics and jumps into the Tory camp.'
