The Health Minister of Northern Ireland, Mike Nesbitt, has been identified as the leading contender to take over the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) following the abrupt resignation of Doug Beattie earlier this month. Beattie cited ongoing conflicts with party officers and a lack of control over the party’s future actions as reasons for his departure.
On Tuesday, it was announced by Robbie Butler, the UUP’s deputy leader and Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Lagan Valley, that he would not be contending for the leadership role. Instead, he offered his support to Nesbitt.
Nesbitt, the MLA for Strangford, has a history of leadership within the party, having served as its leader from 2012 to 2017. If elected, he will hold the unique distinction of becoming the first UUP leader to serve in the role twice.
In a statement, Butler underlined the necessity of prioritising the future and the potential change of the UUP and political unionism in Northern Ireland at large. He stated a leadership under Nesbitt offered a promising chance to instil a fresh and ambitious strand of unionism for Northern Ireland residents whilst modernising party structures for membership.
He emphasised the importance of ensuring that silent non-voters and pro-Union individuals have representation reflecting their vision for a prosperous future for all.
The nomination process for the leadership position commenced last week and will conclude at 4.30pm on the 30th of August. An exceptional general assembly has been scheduled for the 14th of September to either ratify or elect the incoming leader.
So far, no one has shown an interest in pursuing the leadership role, but it appears Mr Nesbitt is being pushed to submit his candidacy by a diverse group of both serving and non-serving members. He is believed to be the only one out of the nine MLAs from the party planning to take this step.
As per the rules of the UUP, a party member can vie for the leadership position if they can secure signatures from 30 fellow party members across nine constituency associations.
Mr Beattie, the previous leader of the UUP, assumed the role without any competition in 2021, after relinquishing his post earlier this month. Being an honoured army veteran and MLA for Upper Bann, he had tried to rejuvenate the party’s performance with a fresh take on unionism aiming to make it stand apart from the DUP and attract former unionist voters who had switched to Alliance.
His leadership faced some turbulence in 2022 when previous negative social media posts, created during his army tenure, were exposed. However, he apologised and with the support of his party, was able to remain as their leader.
During his term, the party experienced its most prosperous electoral performance in recent times, securing its first Westminster seat since 2017 in the July general election.