Ulster Conservatives
away with the argument that Conservative intervention in Ulster would involve the loss of Unionist seats to either the SDLP or Sinn Fein.
In recent history, until the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the two Unionist parties com- peted, and this did not normally result in seats being lost to nationalists.
Only two seats in Ulster are now likely to fall into nationalist hands if Unionists stand against each other, Mid-Ulster, and Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Both seats have sitting Unionists MPs (because of the split nationalist vote) and both are consti- tuencies where any Unionist candidate standing against the sitting MP is very unlikely to get anything but a derisory vote.
Finally, any Tory fighting on a pro- Anglo-Irish Agreement platform will gain such a small vote that the result will be totally unaffected. If the Tory Party was to abandon the Agreement and stand on a clear pro-Union platform, we can be confi- dent they would take seats from the Unionist Party and do it with a significant number of votes drawn from the minority community.
For the sake of honesty the sooner the Tory party drops Unionist from its title the better, especially after the recent disgust- ing scene when Tory MPs cheered the arrival in Parliament of a Scottish Nationalist MP.
William McDowell
28 Parkdale Road, London SE18
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