Coulter stresses value of Tory link

Rev Dr Robert Coulter, the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly member for North Antrim and UUP Stormont Commissioner, has described the Conservative and Ulster Unionist New Force as a "homecoming for Unionism".

Dr Coulter made his remarks when he addressed UUP members from the Upper Bann constituency in Lurgan at the invitation of his fellow MLA, Mr Sam Gardiner.

He said: "There is a sense of homecoming which we as a party feel with our new relationship with the Conservative Party. It is a new relationship, but yet it is also an old relationship.

"For nearly 80 of our 104 year history, we were the Conservative and Unionist Party. In the past, our relationship was even closer with Ulster Unionists serving on the National Union of the Conservative Party and its Executive Committee.

"One of our political representatives from my part of the country, North Antrim - Robin Chichester-Clarke - was even a Minister in the Heath Conservative Government.

"More important than all of this, however, are our shared values. The values we share with the Conservative Party appear in many ways. Not least among them is a belief in the family.

"The family as an institution has been badly eroded under the last 12 years of Labour. Among the foremost standard bearers for the family in the Assembly is your own MLA, Sam Gardiner.

"Sam has spoken out consistently for tax concessions for families to help and support family life over the past four years. Now we find that same policy is one of the main policies of the Conservative Party.

"David Cameron has vowed to double the income tax allowances for families to over £12,000 under the next Conservative Government.

"It is interesting that Sam Gardiner was advancing exactly the same policy years before the new Ulster Unionist Alliance with the Conservative Party was formed.

"This demonstrated our shared values, values which are instinctive and hard wired into both our parties. Let no one tell you this is an alliance of convenience and a political stunt.

"Our shared values run deep, they are deeply tied in with a shared patriotism and a shared Britishness. They are values of home, family and freedom.

"The Conservative and Unionist homecoming is perhaps the greatest political development in our generation.

"It is the first great challenge to the Sinn Fein agenda in our recent political history. Now in opposition to Sinn Fein's all-Ireland agenda comes the challenge of a new Conservative and Ulster Unionist Party.

"A new Conservative and Unionist Party that takes our Ulster Unionist Party into the very heart of decision making in Whitehall, and into the very heart and mind of the next Conservative Government.

"It offers a real alternative to Sinn Fein's agenda, a real unionist option, making both us and Northern Ireland a real and active participant in the union.

"The real choice for electors in Northern Ireland is now between the all-Ireland agenda of Sinn Fein and the UK agenda of the Conservative and Ulster Unionist Party. That is the real choice for electors and it leaves other parties floundering in irrelevancy," said Assemblyman Dr Coulter.