Cooperation and Change

As I seem to have corralled a fair slice of the Slugger readership here today, I’m going to treat you to the third Conservatives and Unionists PEB so far denied to you on your favourite site!

Jim Nicholson’s message of "Cooperation with but not controlled by Europe" encapsulates perfectly my own attitude to what should be the United Kingdom’s policy towards the European Union. I also want to be voting for someone who will be forming a part of a much bigger UK-wide team in Europe, I want to be voting for the UK not the provincial version of Unionism in other words. What else? Jim Nicholson is the candidate in this election with the most experience of how to get things done within the labyrinths of the Brussels bureaucracy- for 20 years he has been working for N. Ireland and the UK in his quiet and undemonstrative way. Last but not least, it would be great for the UK collectively in its four constituent parts; England, N.Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to send a resounding message to Gordon Brown and the Labour government in Westminster.

As Chekov has also intimated, the one thing I’d wanted to have seen in this campaign (ie the attempt to sell the Union on the widest possible basis within Northern Ireland) hasn’t been evident in much of Mr Nicholson’s speeches, to be honest Alex Kane’s most recent article in The Newsletter also disappointed me in that respect. But I’m convinced we are only nearing the end of the beginning of this project to change the face of Unionism within Northern Ireland- if the will within particularly the UUP is there to embrace the changes needed, the potential for the long-term future of a truly secular, modern, all-encompassing Unionism is enormous. There have been many positive signs in that regard, none more so than the willingness of the Conservative big hitters to put the time and work in to help Jim’s campaign; also a UUP party which (with the dishonourable exception of Lady Sylvia) has remained united during the course of some of the rougher parts of the campaign was good to see; finally there has also been a noticeable improvement in the PR side of things.

So there you have it. If you believe in a truly pan-UK Unionism, if you want a Northern Irish representative fighting together with colleagues from the other three corners of the UK for our nation in Europe and most importantly of all, if you believe that change is needed in our local and national politics, there’s only one candidate for you in this election- Jim Nicholson.