Talk:Oliver Napier

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Is he a Unionist?

He is in the Category "Catholic Unionists" but he is a member of Alliance, which isn't a unionist party. He he personally described himself as a unionist? NotMuchToSay 20:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Unionist" with a big "U" and with a small "u" can be used to mean different things, especially in relation to Alliance. However the difference can appear too fine to the point it gets messy so "pro union/Union" (can't remember which case) often gets used instead of small-u unionist to mean "person/party that prefers the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but does not identify as part of the 'Unionist community'". Alliance's position on the Union has traditionally been supportive, but couched in terms of economics and the like, rather than appeals to "Ulster's culture". Certainly the party regards it as possible to support the Union without declaring for one community over another.

From recollection Napier is regarded as pro Union - some coverage of the 1995 North Down by-election that I've seen describes as such. Nick Whyte's site describes one incident when Bob McCartney (the UK Unionist candidate) declared that if elected he would take the Labour whip in the Commons and at the Alliance press conference responding to this Napier played the "green scare" card, pointing to Labour's historic support for a United Ireland (although by 1995 the party had moved away from this) rather than perhaps a "red scare" by pointing to Labour's poor record on the economy (the seat is the most affluent in the province). Certainly this indicates support for the Union, even though it demonstrates the difficulty of being "pro Union" but not "Unionist" - really only a Unionist party can pitch for votes by attacking another party's credentials on the Union. Timrollpickering 22:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 06:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]