Party of 'warring tribes' loses another leader

Doug Beattie, who led the UUP for just over three years, quit on Monday

Back in the days when it was a much more significant player than it is now, a colleague used to refer to the Ulster Unionist Party as “a loose confederation of warring tribes.”

The years have diminished the party in many ways but the description still stands.

Just witness the demise of Doug Beattie as the latest to try - and fail - to return the party to former glories.

He breezed in promising a vision of “A Union of People”.

He couldn’t even manage a union of his own party, which – though we don’t hear as much about the schisms as we did in the UUP of old – they clearly still exist.

Which party would shed a leader over an internal selection row to fill a vacancy caused by a leadership decision which resulted in it returning to the green benches of Westminster?

It was a chance for Mr Beattie – and his party – to claim they were on the way back.

Instead it has ended up exposing once again the divisions which are never far from the surface.

That new MP, the former Health Minister Robin Swann, was, until his elevation to Westminster, one of five then current UUP assembly members to have lead the party.

Soon there will be another.

It looks like a hopeless task.

For example if it is the current deputy leader, Robbie Butler, the first question will be “Didn’t you try to leave politics to become the children’s commissioner within the past two years? ”, a story revealed by BBC NI.

It could even be former leader Mike Nesbitt, back for another go.

However, compared to trying to lead the Ulster Unionist Party the poison chalice of health minister must seem much more attractive