Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party is the oldest, and has been the most dominant, party of Unionism in Northern Ireland since being founded in 1905. Between 1922 and the end of the old Stormont Parliament in1972, the party provided five Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland.
The current First Minister of Northern Ireland, David Trimble, is the present UUP party leader. He is one of just two Ulster Unionist MPs to have been elected to the new Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998, although his Westminster colleague at Stormont, John Taylor, has decided not to defend his seat at the general election.
The Ulster Unionist Party has been sharply divided over much of the last five years, initially on whether to enter negotiations with Sinn Féin, and, more recently, over whether to remain in the Northern Ireland Executive in the absence of IRA decommissioning.
The party won 32.67% of the votes in the 1997 general election. It has 9 MPs at Westminster and 28 MLAs at the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Of the nine Ulster Unionist MPs at Westminster, five have consistently opposed the Good Friday Agreement since 1998. Each is contesting the parliamentary elections on 7 June. By contrast, David Trimble and Cecil Walker are the only "pro-Agreement" Ulster Unionist MPs seeking re-election, as John Taylor and Ken Maginnis are retiring from parliamentary politics.
