Burnside will continue campaign against Trimble
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble will continue to face calls to stand down even if he wins today’s leadership battle, South Antrim MP David Burnside claimed today.
As delegates to the Ulster Unionist Council headed to a South Belfast hotel for their annual vote on Mr Trimble’s leadership, Mr Burnside accused the Upper Bann MP of being in denial about last November’s Assembly Election result.
Mr Trimble will be challenged today by two party members – Coleraine marketing and management consultant David Hoey, and Portadown businessman Robert Oliver.
But with Mr Trimble’s supporters expecting him to secure over 60% of the vote at the annual general meeting of the 800-member Ulster Unionist Council, Mr Burnside said his wing of the party would “continue to try and persuade him to stand down.
“I find it unbelievable that I am coming to a party council meeting after our electoral decline.
“We’ve had decline in three elections, plus our defeat and the leader has not had the dignity to stand down.
“As in any other party in the United Kingdom we will fight, we will fight hard to try and win.
“It is the job of a political leader to win elections and by that criteria David Trimble is a failure. He should stand down and have the dignity to do so.
“I am planning, as the Member of Parliament for South Antrim, for the recovery of the Ulster Unionist Party electorally.
“We were defeated. David seems to live on a fantasy island. He seems to think that we had a victory last November. We were defeated.”
