UUP: Rambunctious week in the turbulent life of the party

From the outside looking in there was much to discuss, some of it not good from the party’s point of view.

It entered this week ahead of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in the most recent opinion poll for the first time in two decades, with Burrows the most popular unionist leader.

The rank and file appear to love him. Some of his MLAs less so, including Butler his new health minister.

But, needs must, and that vacancy could not remain unfilled for long.

Perhaps, naively you might think, that leaving your only executive minister, Nesbitt, believing he had no option but to resign by publicly undermining him at a town hall meeting is bad for electoral business.

Especially coming weeks after falling out so badly with another former leader, Doug Beattie, that he quit the party.

As one party grandee said to me this week “we never fail to disappoint”.

On 6 June, I wrote: “If metaphorically shooting yourself in the foot had real-world consequences the Ulster Unionist Party would walk with a permanent limp.”

Jon Burrows – a disrupter – an unusual political leader by any standards, does not see it like this.

He believes the events of this week are the inevitable outworking of a revolution spearheaded by him.

Someone close to his thinking told me: “Jon recognised the UUP was flatlining and needed a high-impact injection of energy to make it relevant again”.