Jon Burrows – What Ulster Unionism’s Latest Club Manager Could Mean for Irish Unity - Paul Breen
Will the Ulster Unionists look forward under new leadership or hark back to past glories (again)?
The election of Jon Burrows as the new leader of the Ulster Unionist Party might at first glance appear to be an internal reshuffle within a declining political force. Yet for those of us concerned with the future of the island and the prospects for Irish unity it is a development that deserves close attention. Not because Burrows is expected to deliver a dramatic turnaround, but because his appointment speaks to the deeper malaise within Ulster unionism and the wider implications that malaise has for the constitutional debate.
Stephen Walker’s quote captured the mood well in a recent Irish Times article when he likened the Ulster Unionist Party to an ailing football club that keeps changing managers in the hope that the next appointment will somehow halt the slide. It is an analogy that resonates, evoking echoes of Manchester United in English football or The Conservative Party in English politics of the present day. Once the most dominant force within unionism, the party now finds itself like a once mighty football club stuck in mid table obscurity, unsure of its identity, uncertain of its tactics, and increasingly irrelevant to the title race. The managerial carousel continues, but the underlying problems remain.
From Mike Nesbitt to Doug Beattie and now to Jon Burrows, the pattern has been familiar. Each leader arrives promising renewal, energy and direction. Each leaves with the same fundamental questions unresolved. What exactly is Ulster unionism for? Who is it trying to represent? And where does it sit in a ‘unionist’ political landscape now dominated by the DUP/TUV on one flank and parts of the Alliance Party on the other?
The party is trapped between competing instincts. If it leans towards the DUP and the TUV, it risks losing its softer, more liberal base, particularly in the border counties where unionism has often been shaped by everyday accommodation with nationalist neighbours. If it attempts to move towards a more progressive or pluralist space, it risks haemorrhaging support to harder line unionism. The result is a constant tactical zigzag. As in football, when a team keeps changing formation without a clear philosophy, the performances suffer and the supporters drift away.
This matters for Irish unity because the nature of unionism shapes the terms of any future constitutional conversation. Historically, the Ulster Unionist Party was the party of the unionist establishment. It represented landed interests, professional classes and a certain patrician confidence. There was a long held assumption in Dublin political circles that if a deal were ever to be done, it would be with this wing of unionism rather than with the more populist, religiously infused politics of the DUP. Fine Gael in particular believed that culturally and socially it had more in common with the Ulster Unionists than with Paisleyite unionism. Whether that worldview and that political reality still exists is open to question.
Today, the Ulster Unionists are a diminished force. Their electoral decline has been steady and in some areas terminal. Yet they retain pockets of support, especially in places like Fermanagh and South Tyrone or Robin Swann’s South Antrim constituency. One is because of rural proximity to the border and the other because of combinations of historical allegiances, urban overspill, relative affluence and the sitting MP’s personal popularity. Places where the Ulster Unionists appear to still have a loyal base are those places that, though uncompromising in ways, seem to understand need for consensus to create a stable society.
This is where the appointment of Jon Burrows becomes interesting. The key question is whether he sees any future in attempting to reimagine the union as a more inclusive and less hostile space for nationalists, or whether he will default to the traditional unionist reflex of circling the wagons. The historical record of political unionism on this front is not encouraging. From language rights to flags to symbols to the very narrative of the state, there has been little appetite to make the union feel like a shared project. The instinct has been to defend the status quo, to treat demographic and cultural change as a threat rather than a reality to be engaged with.
From an Irish unity perspective, there is an uncomfortable paradox. A more progressive Ulster unionism could in theory slow the momentum towards unity by making the union more attractive to some nationalists. But the continued failure of unionism to offer any meaningful sense of welcome only strengthens the argument for constitutional change. The sense that the North remains a cold house for nationalism is not an abstract concept. It is lived and felt. Unionism’s cultural stubbornness, its tendency to define the state as belonging to one tradition, pushes many people towards the conclusion that their future lies elsewhere.
There is also a strategic dimension. It would arguably be better for the future stability of the island to have a stronger Ulster Unionist Party than an even more dominant DUP or TUV. The DUP represents a form of unionism that is culturally defensive, politically rigid and instinctively hostile to compromise. If the Ulster Unionists were to collapse entirely into that orbit, many of their more liberal voters would almost certainly drift towards Alliance. A merger with the DUP might make organisational sense, but it would hollow out any remaining space for moderate unionism and deepen polarisation. It would not save the union. It would simply harden its edges, letting it drift ever deeper towards death by the drip-feed of intransigence.
The football analogy again holds. When a club loses its identity and starts copying its rivals, it rarely ends well. Supporters lose faith. The atmosphere turns sour. The sense of belonging evaporates. The Ulster Unionists risk becoming a party with no style, no clear base and no compelling reason to exist. Changing the manager will not fix that. Only a serious ideological rethink will. And that rethink needs to be one that stimulates both internal and external conversations about the future of Ireland as a whole.
For those of us committed to Irish unity, this is a moment for observation rather than interference. It is not our role to rescue unionism from itself. But it is important to understand the dynamics. In the long run, the election of Jon Burrows may mean very little. It may simply be another turn of the managerial carousel in a party clinging on above the relegation zone. It may be another attempt to look active while avoiding the harder questions. But it could also be a small signal that some within unionism recognise that the old certainties no longer hold, even if they are unsure what should replace them.
For the Labour movement and for those of us who believe in a new, shared and equal Ireland, the lesson is not to sneer at unionism’s decline but to understand it. A united Ireland will not be built on the humiliation of one tradition. It will be built on confidence, generosity and a willingness to imagine a different political settlement. Whether Jon Burrows is capable of contributing to that conversation remains to be seen. For now, his appointment is less a turning point than a reflection of the deep uncertainty at the heart of Ulster unionism.
Like a once great club drifting through mid table seasons, the Ulster Unionist Party knows that something has gone wrong but cannot yet agree on what success should look like. Until it resolves that, the managers will keep changing, the crowd will keep thinning, and the constitutional game will continue to move on without them.
