Split
The Constitutional Convention was intended to serve as a forum to allow the politicians of Northern Ireland to draw up their own proposals for the political future of the province, though this proved unsuccessful. However it led to William Craig proposing a voluntary coalition with the nationalist SDLP in the event of there being a state of emergency. The move was a considerable surprise, with a confidential government memo commenting: "Mr. Craig appears to some as a knight in shining armour. The fact is that his aims were – and still are – simple: to get a devolved government which would control security policy as quickly as possible, on the basis of a gentleman's agreement that the SDLP would participate in government for a year or two." But any idea of power sharing was anathema to many Unionist in the post-Sunningdale climate of 1975. Indeed in January 1976, Deputy leader Ernest Baird warned that "If Westminster does not accept the Protestants' rejection of power-sharing, it must face the inevitable consequences of a final conflict."
As a result the party was split with only David Trimble and Glenn Barr backing Craig and the other eleven convention members challenging Craig's leadership. Craig however claimed that he had the backing of the party's rank and file and this was confirmed when sixty percent of party members and backed him at a specially convened meeting. The dissidents then broke away to form what would later become the United Ulster Unionist Party.
On 8 September 1975, Craig's proposals were decisively rejected at a meeting of the UUUC with 37 votes against and only Craig voting in favour. Consequently, Craig and the rump of VUPP were expelled from the UUUC.
Read more about this topic: Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party
Famous quotes containing the word split:
“Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“For four hundred years the blacks of Haiti had yearned for peace. for three hundred years the island was spoken of as a paradise of riches and pleasures, but that was in reference to the whites to whom the spirit of the land gave welcome. Haiti has meant split blood and tears for blacks.”
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“Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar- room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.”
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