Issues

Empey

A native of Newcastle, Willie has been a Down District councillor for the area since 2001 and was elected to the Assembly for South Down in 2003. He takes a keen interest in tourism and the environment, and is Sinn Féin’s Fisheries Spokesperson. Willie is Deputy Chair of the Assembly’s Standards and Privileges Committee, and also sits on the Agriculture and Regional Development Committees.

With a family background in the UUP, getting involved in political life was in some ways a natural choice for Reg Empey. One uncle was a MP in the Northern Ireland Parliament while another served in Belfast City Hall for many years while other relatives were also party activists.

The prompter, though, was when he was studying at Queen’s University Belfast at the time when the Troubles started. It was a “complete shock” to see violence on the streets and he joined the party’s branch at the university. Shortly afterwards, he was asked to become publicity officer of the Ulster Young Unionist Council, the UUP’s youth wing, which deepened his involvement in the party.

“I never sat back when I joined the Young Unionists and said: ‘I’m going to be leader one day.’ I never had that sort of approach to it,” he insists. His election in the June 2005 leadership contest followed a period of “enormous trauma” for the party in the aftermath of the Belfast Agreement.

As a negotiator in the late 1990s, he was “intimately involved” in the drafting of the Agreement “and locked away in that building effectively for over two years”. Empey remains a strong believer in it. This is a running theme throughout the interview, as he refers back to the talks process and sets the Agreement as the backdrop for current political events.

However, it was also a source for major disputes within the party. He maintains that given the British Government’s attitude to Northern Ireland over the Troubles “we had no choice but to negotiate for ourselves and fundamentally the Belfast Agreement is the template we’re using today. And, ironically, virtually everybody who was opposed to us in those days is now fully participating in it.”

Any changes agreed at St Andrews have, in his words, been “cosmetic” and for the worse. In leadership, he has seen it as his role to bring those internal disputes within the party to an end and also take the UUP in a new direction.

Impressions

A number of political leaders whom he met during the peace process have left an impression on him.

Bill Clinton stands out as “the best operator I have ever seen with people”. From his meetings with Clinton, Empey recalls that “he had this ability to make the person he was speaking to feel that they were the only person in the room”.

He was also impressed with how George Mitchell ‘stuck the pace’ and worked hard in Northern Ireland despite receiving a lot of criticism when he first arrived. “He didn’t have to be here,” Empey points out, “and generally speaking, I do not think an Agreement would have been reached if he hadn’t been here.”

Bertie Ahern was a good negotiator and “didn’t wear his republicanism on his sleeve” as he was “out to get a settlement” in Northern Ireland. Tony Blair, meanwhile, “really did try to sell 500 per cent of the company shares” by selling deals to different parties with slightly different words. “His eye was bigger than his belly” to use an Ulster expression.

“While he [Blair] was an important catalyst, he overdid it in my view to the point that he created a lot of distrust particularly amongst unionists,” he states. David Trimble also provided “real leadership” in 1998, when he stood on a table in the UUP’s conference room and asked for as many people as possible to come with him to do a deal, despite his reservations about the Agreement.

Principles

Formally established in 1905, the UUP’s main goal is to maintain and promote the union, rather than seeing Northern Ireland as an “outpost”. Empey adds that the party’s policies must promote that aim in a way that is as attractive to as many people as possible.

“We can’t simply stay within the purely sectarian boundaries that have been set for us over the years. And we’ve lots of people living in Northern Ireland now who don’t fit naturally into either categories,” he continues.

“Population structures change. We’ve lots of people who have moved in over those last 10 years. We’ve a generation growing up there who don’t see themselves necessarily as closely linked to one group or another as might have been the case 20, 30 years ago.”

This emphasis on making the case for the union was one factor which led to the party’s discussions on closer links with the Conservatives. Indications in early 2008 that SDLP was considering a link with Fianna Fáil also influenced this move. An SDLP-Fianna Fáil coalition could have resulted in the same nationalist party sitting in government in both Belfast and Dublin, while unionists would remain “disconnected nationally”.

David Cameron was also “no longer neutral on the union” and moving to the political centre on the NHS and social justice, therefore taking up similar policy positions to the UUP. The Conservative leader also allows for local autonomy so that policies will not be “simply carbon copied from London” but tailored to the different parts of the UK.

Empey reflects that during the Thatcher era, the parties would have been too far apart to contemplate such links.

Many senior UUP members would be “slightly left-of-centre” but with New Labour, the ideological gap between Labour and the Conservatives has been closed and he does not see that as a problem for the pact.

“You see where my office is and where it’s located. And customers that we have coming in here, many of them are suffering very significant deprivation … and only I think, to be perfectly honest, that [because] he has become the leader and has taken these views on a lot of the social and economic issues, that is the only reason why this has been possible now.”

The murders of two soldiers and a police officer in March re-emphasised to him the need to normalise politics in Northern Ireland.

“If we retain the narrow envelope that says Northern Ireland has to be defined continuously in the nationalist-unionist struggle, we’re going to condemn the next generation to the same mess that we’ve just left,” Empey states.

The pact offers the electorate a new choice and the chance to vote for candidates who, according to Empey, will be part of a future UK Government. Northern Ireland’s “missing link” would then been restored.

At the same time, Empey says he is “100 per cent behind devolution, always have been”. Devolution, he explains, is now “part of the UK national landscape” but important issues such as tax and mortgages remain dominated by events at Westminster.

Instead of having 10 or 11 pro-union MPs from Northern Ireland, he suggests that it would be better for unionism to be part of a group of 300 to 400 unionist MPs in London through the Conservative link.

Future

The future of unionism itself, Empey asserts, is “basically good” with the impact of the economic crisis on the Republic reaffirming his confidence in the union.

“I think the lesson of the last year is that if you’re a small, isolated nation, you can see how vulnerable you could be. I mean Dublin has done exceptionally well for 10, 12 years and yet within 12 months, they’re in severe difficulties. And size matters in economics.”

Alex Salmond’s proposed ‘arc of prosperity’ of independent northern European nation-states has also “evaporated” and Empey sees that much greater safety and security in being part of a larger political unit. He puts Northern Ireland’s economic survival down to its place in the UK economy and also views mutual co-operation between EU member states as good evidence to support the concept of unionism.

“I think if you ask anybody in the Irish Government today would they like to take on responsibility for Northern Ireland, they’ll throw themselves into the Liffey because it just would be impossible for them,” Empey adds.

Asked to sum up his politics, he chooses the words pragmatic “within a framework of principles”, compassion and determination “otherwise you get rolled over”.

With a business background, Empey finds he is able to empathise with businesspeople affected by the current recession. He started his career in rubber manufacturer Goodyear’s Craigavon plant and later worked in retailing.

“Although I was always in business in a small way, I still had frequently to meet a payroll – even a small one – and I know what it is like to be sitting at 12 o’clock on Friday and not knowing how I’m going to get the wages for the afternoon.”

He knows the pressures of not having a cash flow and having creditors on a business’ back, and the resulting impact on mortgages, family life and the work place, especially in small businesses. Empey remarks: “I’ve got an understanding of what it’s like to sack people and the implications for that. Unless you’ve actually been there and done it, it’s very hard to learn what it feels like to do that.”

Challenging the DUP

Since 2003, when the DUP overtook the UUP, the gap between the parties has widened to a sizeable lead for Empey’s opponents. At the 2007 Assembly election, the DUP polled 207,721 first preferences to the UUP’s 103,145.

He describes the DUP’s lead as one gained “under false pretences” in the light of Ian Paisley’s decision to share power with Sinn Féin after opposing political change for many years. Empey expects the consequences of this “contradiction” to eventually catch up with the DUP.

“Fundamentally, we called it right 10, 11 years ago,” he says. “Now, we’ve paid a price for that, largely because of our divisions and in many respects it’s our own fault because we allowed that to happen. And many of the people who perpetrated the divisions are now happily sitting with Sinn Féin as brothers in an Executive.”

Empey sees a pattern where the DUP adopts UUP policies about eight years after his party puts them forward. He also suspects that many DUP members would favour a link with the Conservatives as they already invite Tory MPs to party events.

Looking back to 1970, when the DUP was formed, he says that unionism has been damaged by that division and also blames that party for contributing to the wider conflict although he does not excuse the IRA.

“It was a disaster of an era for unionism and for Northern Ireland and I think it was largely avoidable … I welcome the change but I’m just saying: ‘What a waste. What were the last 30-odd years all about?’ And I think that ultimately is the question they all have to answer.”

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