Former Conservative NI chairman rejoins party after two rejections

Multi-millionaire former businessman Alan Dunlop resigned last October, while Boris Johnson was still leader, claiming the national party was reluctant to organise properly in Northern Ireland.

He then applied to rejoin whenever Mr Johnson announced his intention to stand down in July this year, with the PM eventually leaving Downing Street in October.

However, after initially being told his application had been accepted, he was then informed it had been rejected.

As the contest to replace Mr Johnson – being fought between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak – was taking place, Mr Dunlop told the News Letter in August this year that his pathway back to the party was being blocked by the NI branch.

On Sunday, he said he was delighted that the issue has “finally resolved by the Membership Committee at national level”.

Mr Dunlop, a former steel importer, said: “I’m not going to pour over the reasons why my application was so strenuously spurned at regional level. There’s no point raking over the past.

"Instead, my focus is on the road ahead and how I can help restore the Conservative brand, build a party structure and, yes, move to a position where we can win seats in councils and in Stormont.

“We’re at a low, low point. It can’t get much worse. But that doesn’t mean we should throw in the towel.

“Conservatism is offering what no other party can offer. The others are tagged either ‘unionist’ or ‘nationalist’ or ‘republican’ or ‘other’, whatever that means. We fall into none of these descriptors. We’re part of a great national party that believes in the Union, but that doesn’t mean we’re a unionist party in the Northern Ireland sense of the word.”

Mr Dunlop added: “We want to offer people a new way. An end of political labels. More than 400,000 people didn’t vote in the last Assembly election because they didn’t like what the local parties had to offer.

“These good people need a political ‘home’ where they can express themselves without being badged”.