UUP 'stable and ready' for next election, says Mike Nesbitt

The Ulster Unionist Party leader was speaking to Belfast Live ahead of his party conference this weekend

Mike Nesbitt sits back in his Stormont office, thoughtful and unhurried as he reflects on the first year of his second stint as Ulster Unionist Party leader. There’s a sense of calm about him, the kind that comes from experience and, perhaps, from a man who has stopped being surprised by the twists of Northern Irish politics.

It was this time last year that he was appointed leader for a second time after he was the only candidate put forward in the wake of Doug Beattie's resignation.

Having had to accept his new role and make his first leadership speech virtually last year, after he was struck by a bout of Covid days before their 2024 party conference, it is clear that Mike is looking forward to being back with the party membership this weekend.

“It’s been a year now since you took back the reins,” I say. “When you first stood down in 2017, did you ever think you’d be back?”

He lets out a quiet laugh. “No, I did not foresee a return,” he says. “But, you know, politics is about dealing with events, dear boy, as Harold Macmillan once called it - the unexpected.”

Nesbitt’s comeback was framed as a steadying move and a safe pair of hands returning to guide the UUP through another period of uncertainty. “I think the ship is pretty steady. There were well-publicised frictions and tensions within the party when I took over. Like last time, my view was we should not wash our dirty linen in public, so there was a kind of a call to just get it back in-house. I think we’re stable.”

That stability, he insists, hasn’t come by accident. Over the past year he’s quietly restructured the party’s backroom operation, putting new faces into key roles and building what he calls “the foundations” for future elections.

“I put a lot of emphasis on a new press and policy team,” he says. “We’ve got a very young, vibrant team and I am really pleased with them. The finances are in better shape than they’ve ever been during my time as a party member.”

He’s realistic enough to know that these internal gains don’t always grab headlines or translate immediately into votes. “While all that kind of internal stuff doesn’t win you votes come election time, without that sort of foundation you don’t have a solid basis on which to go out to the public and try and attract the votes,” he says.

Still, he sounds confident about where the party stands and where it’s heading. “So I think we’re in really good shape, with the next elections coming up in about 18 months’ time.”

That next test will come in the local government and Assembly polls due in 2027, the same year Nesbitt will mark a decade since his first tenure as leader ended. Between now and then, he wants the UUP to focus on clarity, on policies that feel practical, moderate and forward-looking in a political landscape that often feels anything but.

“People want a party that’s more cohesive and coherent,” he says later in the conversation. “Cohesive as a team and coherent in its messaging.” It’s a line that captures the essence of his second act as leader which has been less about making noise and more about making sense.

If there’s fatigue in his voice, it doesn’t show. Mike Nesbitt still speaks with the slightly formal precision that has always set him apart from the rabble-rousing instincts of other Stormont figures. But there’s also something quietly pragmatic about him these days and that is a recognition that rebuilding the UUP won’t be achieved with slogans or stunts.

“I think,” he says, “there’s a lot of self-interest within the various parties.” He pauses, choosing his words carefully. “So what I look to, as we look ahead to May 2027 and the Assembly and local government elections, is replicating something that I did in 2015 at Westminster, which was probably my most successful election.”

That, he explains, was the year the UUP pulled off a surprise win in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, with the DUP canvassing for the Ulster Unionist candidate, Tom Elliott, while the parties competed elsewhere. “We were cooperating in one area, contesting in two others,” he says. “It’s the ultimate mixed message, but actually it’s possible to do.”

As talk turns to the months ahead, Nesbitt’s tone remains calm, but questions linger over how long he plans to stay at the helm. Over the summer he said he’d make a decision on his future in January and he isn’t giving anything away before then.

When asked directly if this weekend’s conference could be his last as leader, he smiles. “I’ll tell you in January."

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