Blog round-up: The Conservative - Ulster Unionist alliance

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Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): The Conservatives' link-up with the Ulster Unionists is provoking a great deal of interest around the blogosphere today.

Over at Brassneck, Mick Fealty sees the move as a sign that the Tories have finally developed a coherent response to devolution.

From a unionist (in the broadest sense of that word) perspective the new arrangements may finally give both parties a purpose beyond the narrow protection of a political union that is no longer under coherent attack from outside, but in grave danger of losing coherence from within.

Iain Dale is enthusiastic about the announcement, which he hopes will lead to a wider change in Northern Ireland politics.

And who knows, it may even encourage some DUP members who are tired of the antics of the likes of Iris Robinson to transfer their allegiances back to their more moderate colleagues in the UUP. I'm told that her recent remarks put some steel in the UUP, who do not wish to be associated with such extreme views. They also think that Northern Ireland politics was tarnished by the deal the DUP allegedly did with the Government over 42 days.

The move is not without pitfalls however. As the BBC's Mark Devenport notes, not everyone in the UUP necessarily identifies with the Conservatives.

This morning's Daily Telegraph proclaims with certainty that the UUP's sole MP Lady Sylvia Hermon will take the Tory whip. That may be jumping the gun, as she has always appeared closer to New Labour than the Conservatives. Some UUP sources tell me Lady Sylvia has been briefed and is persuadable, but she herself is on leave after her father's death and says only that she will watch developments with nterest.

Conall McDevitt is sceptical about the advantages for the UUP:

Should the inevitable happen, and I believe their is an air of inevitability about all this, the one thing the UUP is going to have to watch out for are the conflicts of interest which will arise if the Tories are in government in London and the UUP are in the Executive in Belfast.

When an issue of difference arises who will they stand by?

Their Leader and Prime Minister or the people of Northern Ireland?

This is a problem the DUP are unlikely ever to have and all politics is, I am afraid, local.

In contrast, the SDLP's El Blogador sees the logic of the move, but is worried about the implications for the North's political settlement:

This move has implications not only for Unionism but for Nationalism/Republicanism and the Assembly too. The Tories established in NI would upset the Good Friday apple-cart much in the way FF coming north would. It remains to be seen how the mandatory coalition model which works on the presumption of the current NI political status quo would adapt to a shifting political state. Politics is in both a state of stagnation in Stormont and of flux elsewhere. Interesting times indeed.

The consolidation of the new Cameronian unionism raises important questions for English nationalists as well as Irish ones. As Gareth Young suggests, the Tories' abandonment of English votes for English laws is almost certainly of a piece with this strategy.

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