They used to be in the position of the DUP, the dominant unionist party and therefore the dominant party in Northern Ireland.
Now unionism faces becoming secondary to nationalism - will the general election tally of 9 nationalist v 8 unionist MPs be reflected in the next assembly elections? Will the Alliance further eat into the unionist share?
The UUP are historically linked to the Tories - their full name is the Conservative AND Unionist Party. But as the UUP became an electoral irrelevance and the DUP negotiated a supply and favour alliance, that link has been lost.
Now, as leader Mike Nesbitt openly acknowledges, they face the ultimate defeat because of their former Tory allies' Brexit policy: the breakup of the UK. It will require a favourable Supreme Court ruling and probably civil unrest in the scale of the anti-poll tax revolt, but Scotland looks set to secede (leave).
The path for Northern Ireland will not be a peaceful one, but the humiliating secondary status and separation that the still officially unionist Tory Brexut deal will bring makes it hard to see how a majority won't eventually form for a reunited Ireland. As the moderate wing of unionism, the UUP could return to the fore in negotiations over that. It was they and the SDLP who negotiated the GFA, not the hard-line SF/DUP.
While the DUP benefit from a clear image, albeit one that horrified mainland Brits when national media shone a spotlight on them over their deal with the Tories (having ignored cash for ash and the potentially deadly deadlock over the Assembly), the UUP have a very, very weak identity, something Nesbitt acknowledges.
“You’ve got rural conservative and urban progressive and we’re going to have to make a decision, one or the other,” he said.
“We can’t go on trying to please everybody because you end up in the middle of the road and if you’re there you get knocked down by traffic coming in both directions.”
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/mike-nesbitt-brexit-is-unionist-own-goal-and-may-lead-to-end-of-the-uk-1-9174692
