Lady Hermon hints at fighting for UUP top job
Lady Sylvia Hermon, winner of the Ulster Unionist Party’s only seat in last week’s general election, is considering contesting the party’s leadership.
Party leader David Trimble announced his resignation on Saturday after losing his Upper Bann seat on Thursday.
The party lost four of MPs in the election.
Rival party the Democratic Unionists performed better with nine seats.
MP for North Down Lady Hermon said she would assess whether she could balance the care for her two young children, and her husband Jack, a former RUC chief constable suffering from Alzheimer`s disease, and the new job opening.
“I care for the party. I care desperately for the future of Northern Ireland so I will think carefully over the weekend and decide at the beginning of the week what I am going to do,” she told RTE`s This Week programme.
Lady Hermon said the UUP`s poor showing in the election was a consequence of a poor campaign and the recalcitrance of republicans to decommission their weapons.
She questioned the UUP’s election slogan “Decent people…vote Ulster Unionist”.
“It offended a lot of people who would naturally be Alliance or would naturally be SDLP,” she said.
A meeting of the 100-strong Ulster Unionist executive is expected to take place in the coming weeks, followed by a special meeting of the larger UUP council, which will elect the new leader.
Meanwhile, former Strangford MP Lord Kilclooney, John Taylor, and ousted hardliner David Burnside, who failed to retain his South Antrim seat, are also in the running for the vacant post.
The defeated candidate for East Belfast, Sir Reg Empey, is also seen as a man to unite the fractured party.
