Text of a speech by Sir Reg Empey to the AGM of the Ulster Unionist Council on Saturday, May 31, 2008.

Ladies and Gentleman: Thank you again for entrusting me with the task of leading the Ulster Unionist Party. It is an honour. It is a privilege.

I am only too aware of the challenges that face us in the year ahead. I know that there are no easy answers and no easy options. But I am convinced that we have turned a corner and that we now have a clear route map for the way forward.

My congratulations, too, to the new Officer team. I welcome the return of some familiar faces as well as some new ones. It's a strong and energetic team---a reflection of the enthusiasm that now exists throughout the Party.

And, on your behalf, as well as my own, I want to thank those Officers who have not sought re-election. Their service to this Party has been immense and they are owed an enormous debt of gratitude.

I am also grateful to our elected representatives---those MLAs and local councillors who have promoted and defended this party across the province.

And I'm sure that our thoughts are with Lady Hermon, who has had a pretty tough year personally. We wish her well.

No list of thanks would be complete, however, without mentioning our staff, led by Jim Wilson and Hazel Legge, who have continued to render excellent service since we last met.

Review

At our last AGM, in April 2007, this Council unanimously endorsed a motion to set up a Review process. This is what I said at the time:

"I promise you this: This Review will not be allowed to shrug off the problems. It won't be allowed to shirk the responsibilities we have placed upon it. It will not be allowed to shy away from making some of the most difficult decisions we have ever had to make.

This is not a cosmetic exercise in tilting at windmills. Rather, it is a crusade to ensure that the UUP has the political, organisational, campaigning, electoral, financial, presentational and media tools to rebuild and move on."

I know that many people questioned our determination, let alone our ability, to complete this Review. Let's face it; "reform" has been a buzz word in this Party for very many years---all the way back to Viscount Brookeborough in the late 1940s! We have started the process on many occasions, only to abandon it a few months down the line.

Ladies and Gentlemen-we have completed the Review. And more than that, at an EGM last October and at a series of Executive meetings since then, we have endorsed a raft of Standing Orders embracing selection, constituency organsation, campaigning, internal discipline, communications and day-to-day administration.

We have done everything we need to do to make this party an effective, efficient, reliable and relevant political and election machine. A party you can be proud of. A party that the electorate will be comfortable with.

It is something we had to do. We had to give people a sense of optimism and a positive reason for voting for us. We have to generate excitement and enthusiasm---and an expectation that we are capable of winning. We have to capture a mood and set a tone.

We had to unite and reinvigorate the Party. That means attracting younger candidates; more women; and better communicators. We have to have the ability to land punches without looking like brawlers. We have to be seen to be offering choice, change and vision.

The electorate does not vote for a party seen to be in decline. But those days are over. So we must now be seen as a party of ideas, of policies and of "normal" politics. And we must have a view of and agenda for Northern Ireland which appeals to the widest possible base.

We need to turn the page on the old politics of Unionist against Nationalist; and close the book on the even older politics of Protestant versus Roman Catholic.

But new structures and rules are not enough in themselves. We have to ensure that they are implemented and acted upon. We have to prove to the electorate and to the media that we have changed and that we are firing on all cylinders.

And it's not just about providing candidates who are focused on how to win. It's also about the sort of collective leadership that focuses on why we should win.

I want to thank all of the people who have helped with this Review. The Convenors of the various review groups; The members of the Standing Orders Advisory Committee chaired by Alex Kane who waded through draft after draft; Mark Neale who acted as Secretary to the Review during the early stages and kept detailed notes from all the road-shows; and the delegates to the Executive Committee who attended so many extra meetings.

And I'm not forgetting the grassroots members who turned up at the road-shows and Association get-togethers. This has been a collective effort and we have a right to be proud of ourselves. It shows what we are capable of when we set our minds to something.

The DUP

I am often asked if it annoys me that the DUP, in March 2007---having hounded us every step of the way---immediately repudiated almost every policy and mantra they ever espoused and somersaulted their way into an Executive structure that contains five Sinn Fein ministers, rather than the two we had in 1998?

Ladies and Gentlemen, "Annoy" doesn't begin to sum it up!

I am sick of the DUP now claiming the credit for everything good that has happened in Northern Ireland since 1998. Particularly when they did everything they could to undermine the efforts we were making.

They told us that the Irish Government would never accept an internal settlement. They told us that Sinn Fein would never buy into partition. They told us that the IRA would never move on the issues of decommissioning or recognition of the legitimacy of Northern Ireland.

Do you remember the days when an IMC Report would never have satisfied the DUP? Or when the word of a couple of clergy on decommissioning would have been regarded by them as laughable? Or when a motion from a Sinn Fein Ard Fheis would have been dismissed as utterly worthless?

And I am sick of the fact that the DUP took a political formula aimed at providing power-sharing and genuine cooperation and turned it into a carve-up based on mutual loathing and balanced by mutual veto.

Ladies and Gentlemen, when I look at Arlene Foster and Jeffrey Donaldson today, snuggling under the duvet with Gerry Kelly and Martin McGuinness, I have only one question to ask them: was it really worth it?

When you look at the DUP's U-turns and at their backtracking from every pledge they ever made, can you honestly say that it justified your efforts to destroy your old party and undermine your former colleagues?

Yes, the Ulster Unionist Party may have had made mistakes on the journey to what we truly believed was an honourable settlement in Northern Ireland; but at least no-one can accuse us of hypocrisy and sheer naked opportunism.

The "Better" Deal?

The DUP still boasts of their successes at St Andrews and the better, fairer deal they returned with. Oh really!

Try telling the electorate of Dromore about that better deal---where a majority of the unionist electorate voted against the DUP candidate.

Try boasting of the better deal to those once core followers who have defected to the TUV---claiming that they have been sold-out

Try convincing the Paisleys---Snr and Jnr---who have been toppled in a brutal coup: And toppled because their MLA group panicked when they became aware of the groundswell of discontent that accompanied the "better" deal.

And try selling the better deal to the tens of thousands of parents who have still no idea what is happening to those children who will be transferring from primary to secondary school in the next few years.

Accountability

Accountability means more, much more, than being able to stop another party from doing something. Genuine accountability is what links the government to the electorate. It's about delivering policies and then facing the voters a few years down the line.

Putting the spoke into Caitriona Ruane's wheel is fine, but it doesn't really mean all that much if you are still utterly dependent upon Sinn Fein to approve the alternative.

And that's the monumental humbug at the very heart of the DUP's self-styled "better deal." It isn't a better deal. If it was, then the DUP would not now be organising meetings around the Province to rage against Ruane.

If it was a genuinely better deal then a mutually agreed transfer process would have been embedded into the Programme for Government.

The truth is this: the DUP can do nothing, absolutely nothing, which doesn't have the imprimatur of Sinn Fein. Call that what you will, but don't dare continue with the pretence that it is a better deal, let alone a fairer deal.

When a party clearly doesn't believe in anything much apart from office itself, then it will do everything it can to safeguard that office, because that is the be-all and end-all of its existence. And being and remaining in office is all that really matters to the DUP.

Peter Robinson and the UUP

All of which explains why Peter Robinson and his inner team are still trying to calculate the damage being done to them by Jim Allister. And so concerned are they, that Arlene Foster is preparing a package to ensure that there won't be any more by-elections between now and the super council elections---elections which she has managed to postpone until 2011. Now there's confidence for you!

And I know, too, that Peter will try and cosy up to us with soft words about cooperation and the need to maximise the overall unionist vote. But let no-one forget that his fingerprints are on every aspect of the DUP's tactics and strategies over the past decades. He, personally, ran the propaganda machine that spat out most of the venom at this party.

So let me put it bluntly: the Ulster Unionist Party didn't endure the orchestrated abuse against us since 1997; or the tidal wave of attacks upon our integrity; or the vilification of our leading figures; simply to strike up a marriage of convenience with a DUP which is worried about the impact of Jim Allister.

And we haven't overhauled our structures, transforming ourselves into a more effective political and electoral machine, just to help Peter Robinson out of a possible electoral hole.

Yes, there are areas in which the DUP and UUP can cooperate. I have no objection to that. But cooperation is a two-way process. It may have taken some people almost forty years to uncover the true nature of the DUP---which can be summed up as a sustained campaign to destroy the UUP---but too many of us in this room know too much about the DUP to be easily swayed by romantic overtures at this stage of the game.

The UUP is in a much stronger position now than it was a year ago. We have made sweeping changes. We have learned lessons. We have listened to our grassroots and to a wider audience. Over the coming weeks you will see evidence of that change.

Today, for example, we launch our new website; providing up-to-date news, dedicated sections for our members and elected representatives and video footage of our activities. It will also have polling facilities, a coming events section and an information bank for those who want to contact us or know about our policies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe that there is still an appetite for what the UUP has to offer Northern Ireland. I believe that we have a legacy of which we can be proud. More importantly, I believe that the electorate will begin to look more favourably upon our achievements and realise that while we didn't always have our act together, we always acted from principle rather than from a mere desire for power.

Eames-Bradley

On Thursday, the Consultative Group on the Past issued its preliminary report. We heard things that were painful, challenging and difficult to bear. But one word we did not hear was "war." Those long bloody years of terrorism were many things, but they were not a war and can never be considered as such.

Having made that clear, we still have to recognise the fact that all of us have been shaped by the events of the last three decades. We cannot bury our heads in the sand---however convenient that would be for some politicians---and pretend that the pain and trauma didn't happen; and nor can we pretend that the pain and trauma doesn't continue still for tens of thousands.

And that is why the UUP will carefully consider the contents of this Report. I urge you to read Danny Kennedy's comments on the report on our new website. In the debate about the past, we will not allow the apologists of any form of terrorism to rewrite history and offer it as justification for their barbarities. We will not allow the courage of the RUC, UDR, RIR and Regular Army to be besmirched by Sinn Fein-orchestrated propaganda.

It may well be true that just because someone had a past, it didn't mean that they couldn't have a future: but they must not assume that we will allow them to airbrush that past from the record and pretend that it never happened.

And nor---as a party which values and promotes law and order---will we shirk from the view that all members of our security services should also be held accountable to the very highest standards of conduct.

There is, I believe, nothing intrinsically wrong with an examination of the past which is based on an honest desire to learn from that past. For if we do not undertake that examination now, then there is every likelihood that it will continue to haunt the coming generations.

I want---this party wants---a society and a political system that respects the sacrifices of the past, but is not forever repeating the hurts of the past. I want a "normal" society and "normal" politics.

"Normal Politics"

People sometimes wonder what we mean when we talk of "normal politics" and dealing with the so-called bread and butter issues. I'll tell you what I mean.

In recent weeks, families of all income groups have been reeling from a sustained series of price hikes on those goods and services which are essential to modern living. Fuel, Gas, electricity, transport, mortgages and food are going up literally every day. On the 5^th May I bought diesel at 117.9p. Yesterday I saw it at 131.9p!

That is only one example. Every vital item is affected; bread, milk, butter etc. This will feed through into inflation and people will naturally be seeking more wages to pay for it.

It will present the Assembly with an enormous challenge. People will want answers. They won't be bought off with rhetoric about a United Ireland or a United Kingdom. They won't be bought off with laying the blame at the door of the Chancellor in 11 Downing Street. And they certainly won't be impressed by the various political parties in that Assembly indulging in a tit-for-tat propaganda battle.

Child poverty and fuel poverty are already everyday facts of life for too many families in Northern Ireland. Recent price rises are making the achievement of child poverty reduction targets almost impossible. Even supposedly well-to-do families are surviving on loans and credit cards.

Is this really the right time to burden our most vulnerable people with new water charges? We have already seen what the 10p tax revolt has done to Gordon Brown.

In our manifesto for the last Assembly election we spoke of the need for "normal politics"---the need to produce and deliver policies which address the socio/economic concerns of everyone in Northern Ireland. A recession makes no distinction between a UUP voter and a SF voter. A mortgage hike can be as devastating to someone in Cultra as it is to someone in Taughmonagh.

We have argued for years that devolution would make a difference to Northern Ireland. It has to make a difference---and it has to be a difference for the better. A recent poll in the Belfast Telegraph had 72% saying that it had made no difference to their lives so far. The Assembly cannot be seen to be impotent in the face of the huge challenges we face. The electorate would be unforgiving.

If ever there was a time for the people and parties of Northern Ireland to stand shoulder to shoulder in the face of oncoming difficulties, then this is that moment. How the Assembly and the Executive Committee deal with the array of problems we face will, ultimately, determine the fate of devolution here.

The Union

The Ulster Unionist Party is, first and foremost, a party of the Union. The UUP is largely responsible for the physical shape of the United Kingdom that we know today. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the ongoing legacy of an Ulster Unionism that has its roots in the late 19^th Century.

It may sound presumptuous for a provincial party to talk about national politics and the challenges facing the Union and the United Kingdom: But Northern Ireland is nothing without that Union---and we should never forget that fact. Indeed, it's our political, philosophical and historical roots which explain why the Union is so much more to us than a label to attach to our political baggage. The Union is the heartbeat of our existence.

But there are new challenges to that Union, in the form of Welsh, Scottish, Irish and even little-Ulster nationalism. There are also challenges coming from the direction of the European Union---particularly the creeping plans to install a constitution which leads to a new State of Europe.

Only a few days ago the President of the European Commission warned that Ireland would have a price to pay if its voters had the temerity to reject the Lisbon Treaty.

We may laugh at the Eurovision Song Contest voting patterns---but they are a manifestation of how different parts of the European Union have different agendas and different tastes. And those tastes and agendas could soon consign the United Kingdom to little more than minority status within new constitutional structures.

The serious point is, that in the EU as well as in the Song Contest, notwithstanding all the rhetoric about being "good Europeans," other countries ruthlessly pursue their self-interest; and often at the expense of the United Kingdom.

I have always believed that the United Kingdom offers the best constitutional, political, social, economic and cultural future for all of its citizens. It is better than any other constitutional alternative I can envisage. And that's why I am an unashamed and unembarrassed Unionist. That's why I want the Ulster Unionist Party to champion a Union that is of benefit to all of us.

In exactly the same way that I believe that the withdrawal of Scotland would be a disaster for the rest of the Union and diminish all of us, I believe that the same would be true if Northern Ireland was ever to leave the Union. Again, that's why it is so important, that with the "constitutional question" now settled, we should dedicate ourselves to selling the benefits of that Union, at home, as well as across the United Kingdom.

What devolution has done---and I'm talking about across the United Kingdom---has created the circumstances in which the Union could be damaged: Damaged in the constituent parts by nationalist parties who believe they would be better alone than together; and damaged by the "regionalism" strategy adopted by a European Union hierarchy which believes that it is easier to assimilate piece by piece rather than nation by nation.

You will be aware that our MEP, Jim Nicholson, is an affiliated member of the British Conservative Group in the European Parliament, with full voting rights. His presence there, and indeed the esteem in which he is held by those MEPs, demonstrates the practical outworking and commonsense of cooperating with those who hold similar views and have similar values to ourselves.

To that end I have given David Cameron an undertaking that if he succeeds in forming a new group in the European Parliament after the 2009 elections, outside the federalist leaning EPP, then the Ulster Unionists will support him by joining his new Group.

It is vital that we build a pan-Union front, involving like minded parties who believe in the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom. And it must spread to the European Parliament as well. The Union and the United Kingdom cannot survive if those who believe in it fight their own corners separately.

A Confident Future

Circumstances change. New political and electoral opportunities present themselves.

But to capitalize upon those circumstances and opportunities you have to be fully prepared.

It's not just enough to hope that the DUP will fall apart and that the electorate will flock back to us. To win votes you have to be worthy of votes.

I believe we are worthy. We have refashioned the party. We have a new-found confidence in ourselves.

We believe in what we are doing. It isn't just a means to an end---that end being the largest party come what may.

It's about building a better Northern Ireland. It's about promoting the Union. It's about defending the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.

All that we have done in the past decade; all that we have done during this past year in terms of the Review, boils down to one simple truth:

Namely, that the Ulster Unionist Party is fully prepared to do what it has always done---promoting the best interests of Northern Ireland irrespective of how difficult the circumstances may be.

We have huge challenges ahead of us.

I believe that we are ready to meet those challenges head on.

And I believe that the Ulster Unionist Party is once again fit for purpose, fit for battle and ready for recovery.

Thank You

ENDS

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