DUP 'in blind panic at thought of election'
THE DUP only voted with opposition parties for an early General Election because they knew there was no chance that the Government would lose the House of Commons vote, Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey has claimed.
Following the vote, which the Government won by a majority of 72, DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said that despite his party's poor European election result, they would "not run away from the electorate".
But Sir Reg said that there was "blind panic" in DUP ranks at the prospect of an early election following the collapse in their European election vote from 175,761 five years ago to 88,346 last Thursday.
"He, like the rest of the DUP, knew full well that there was absolutely no chance that the Government would be defeated," the UUP leader said.
"The last thing the DUP wants at this stage is a General Election.
There is now no seat in Northern Ireland which can be considered safe for the DUP."
However, in an embarrassing distraction for the UUP hierarchy, the party's sole MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon, voted with the Government against the motion.
She said she didn't think it was the right time for an election because it was the responsibility of the current Parliament "to clean up its own mess".
"Otherwise, if we had a dissolution now, the scandal of MPs' expenses would only tarnish the new Parliament from the very start. That's just not sensible in my view," said Lady Hermon.
Meanwhile, DUP East Londonderry MP Gregory Campbell said that the European election had shown that a three-way split in the unionist vote was bad for unionism as a whole.
The DUP, he said, was a party raised up from "grassroots unionists" and was "well aware" of the reasons that it had lost almost half its vote.
"We will be addressing those factors immediately," he said.
"The truth is that a three-way split in unionism allowed Sinn Fein to get to the top of the poll.
"The next Province-wide electoral contest which is first past the post and does not allow the luxury of proportional representation must not be allowed to help Sinn Fein to advance."
Mr Campbell said the DUP "will ensure that we reconnect with the unionist electorate who did not vote as well as others to ensure that unionism wins in future electoral battles".
But TUV leader Jim Allister mocked the DUP's attempt to work out why its vote had so spectacularly collapsed.
Speaking to the TUV Central Council, Mr Allister said: "The DUP deludes itself - as it did after Dromore - if it thinks changing personnel and reheating the same old diet of power-sharing with IRA/Sinn Fein will revive its fortunes.
"It is a party in decline, brought there by abandonment of principle and double-crossing its voters."
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 29 May 2012
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