DUP and UUP representatives are often asked on the doorsteps about the possibility of a merger. They can hardly explain why this is unrealistic. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire. Representatives from both parties will confirm they are often asked about it on the doorsteps, or pressed about it. They can hardly explain why this is unrealistic: it is difficult enough holding each party’s factions together without combining them all into one.
In 2021, after he was narrowly beaten to the DUP leadership by Edwin Poots, he had a private meeting with UUP leader Doug Beattie. When this fact emerged the following year, both men’s accounts of it differed. The DUP now seems determined to put on a united front, rallying behind a moderate new leader, Gavin Robinson, with reports Poots might become his deputy. Robinson could end up taking his party further towards the UUP’s presumed role of a slightly more liberal broad church.
Co-operation between them is more plausible, but it is complicated by the two electoral systems operating in Northern Ireland: first-past-the-post for Westminster; PR-STV for Stormont and councils. Electoral pacts appear to work at Westminster, driving much of the grassroots interest in a single unionist party. Unionism has previously regained the ultra-marginal seat of Fermanagh and South Tyrone by running an agreed candidate. A pact could also regain North Down and secure seats elsewhere.
Beattie has made a point of ruling out pacts, believing they destroy the smaller party. The DUP makes this decision easy by clearly expecting the UUP would always stand aside.