Opinion

Tom Kelly: Doug Beattie needs to translate bonhomie into votes

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

UUP leader Doug Beattie is boxing clever with a secular pitch to woo back Alliance unionist voters whilst staying within the wider unionist stable: Picture by Hugh Russell.
UUP leader Doug Beattie is boxing clever with a secular pitch to woo back Alliance unionist voters whilst staying within the wider unionist stable: Picture by Hugh Russell. UUP leader Doug Beattie is boxing clever with a secular pitch to woo back Alliance unionist voters whilst staying within the wider unionist stable: Picture by Hugh Russell.

“For the everyday not for the extraordinary day” - so says the trendy new video from the Ulster Unionist party.

The adjective which best describes the content is schmaltzy.

It’s overly sentimental, syrupy, lovey-dovey and toe curlingly drippy. But the gardening brigade of middle class unionists across the suburbs of North Down, South and East Belfast will lap it up as they would a macchiato.

This promotional video encapsulates a Northern Ireland which only exists in the mind's eye of the north’s glitterati.

Yummy mummies, spotless children, coiffured farmers and a couple of middle aged mods make an appearance. This is so sanitised it's like a political version of the Stepford Wives.

Whereas “There’s no Place like Tyrone’ has the earthy, gravelling tones of Uncle Hugo to drill down on your ears, this unionist production has the smooth silvery voice of former broadcaster, now MLA, Mike Nesbitt to lull the listener into a Northern Nirvana.

Ian Knox cartoon 9/10/21 
Ian Knox cartoon 9/10/21  Ian Knox cartoon 9/10/21 

In fairness, throughout this video there is not a flute in sight.

No ‘cultural’ bonfires. No Lambegs. No Orange Order. No kick the Pope bands. Not even a wee rendition of the Sash.

This was such a politically neutral production it could have been an advertisement for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

In the view of the new UUP leadership team Northern Ireland is a kaleidoscope of colour, diverse and integrated. Which of course, it is not.

The north remains deeply segregated in housing, education and socially. Walls still divide local communities and seams of sectarianism run as deeply in golf clubs as they do on the terraces of some soccer clubs. As for tackling deep seated racism and xenophobic sentiment political parties have hardly moved the barometric needle.

All that said, we can only hope that change is possible.

Doug Beattie and his deputy Robbie Butler have certainly demonstrated ambition and leadership and cannot be faulted for trying to raise the bar.

Beattie is what some might call a ‘rattling fella’ who has shown he can roll with the punches.

Of course, he has and is making mistakes but they are such that the public find it easy to forgive him.

One huge error was siding with the DUP, TUV and PUP over the NI Protocol. Lining up with a party, ie the TUV, which is wholly committed to destroying the fabric and spirit of the Good Friday Agreement, is completely incompatible with the direction of travel Beattie and Butler are driven towards with their inclusive and pluralist brand of unionism.

Naturally there is a degree of politicking going on. Transfers amongst unionists will be all important in deciding who takes those last crucial seats. Beattie is boxing clever with a secular pitch to woo back Alliance unionist voters whilst staying within the wider unionist stable. The DUP, like a crocodile offering a chicken a lift across a river, have shown themselves to being carnivorous when the UUP cosy up too close. Beattie needs to find John Taylor’s forty foot barge pole. The machinations of parties like the PUP whose links to the UVF are often blurred will be problematic for a party of law and order like the UUP.

There is something fresh and appealing about the Beattie/Butler combination starting with a sense of actual empathy with ordinary people and an ever more important quality of appreciating self deprecating humour. They represent a move away from patrician type unionism.

Robin Swann was a decent politician but not an inspiring leader, though his seriousness has served him well during the pandemic. Tom Elliott was too rooted in a disappearing political world to ever be effective.

Mike Nesbitt, being new to politics, did all the heavy lifting to modernise the UUP in a way that former Vanguards like Trimble and Empey could never tackle.

So now Beattie and Butler need to translate bonhomie into political momentum and more importantly votes.

If successful that would be an extraordinary day.