UUP leader acknowledges “mammoth task”
With only one seat in the Commons after a disastrous showing at last month’s general election, newly-elected Ulster Unionist party leader Sir Reg Empey has acknowledged the “mammoth task” in rebuilding the party’s decimated power base.
The former Stormont enterprise minister won out over fellow assembly member Alan McFarland in second vote on Friday, succeeding David Trimble who quit after the UUP’s disastrous election result.
Sir Reg said he was under “absolutely no illusions” about the difficulties that lay ahead.
“It’s a mammoth task but we have faced great adversity before and we will meet the challenge,” he said.
Danny Kennedy, Newry and Armagh MLA, is expected to assume the role of deputy leader.
On the pivotal issue of IRA disarmament, Sir Reg said he would be adopting a wait-and-see policy in March 2006, when the International Monitoring Commission delivers its report on terrorist activity on both sides of the sectarian divide, before assessing any IRA offer to put its weapons beyond verifiable use.
“We went into government with republicans on three occasions just to give them time to change their ways and each time they soiled the nest. So we will only be interested in what the IRA does and not what it says,” he said.
Sir Reg offered little hope that the IRA would end criminal activity once and for all.
“I suspect they will do as they have done in Dublin and privatise their criminality, allowing ordinary criminals to carry out robberies and so on and then tax them,” Sir Reg said.
Taking a snipe at Tony Blair, Sir Reg accused the prime minister for “hanging” Mr Trimble out to dry, by refusing to sling Sinn Fein – once the political voice for the IRA – out of government when IRA activities were ongoing
“I won’t let him do that to me,” he pledged.
Sir Reg also predicted there would be no permanent political settlement in Northern Ireland until the parading issue was resolved.
