UUP faces the North Down Question

Robin Sheeran
Politics Show, Northern Ireland

Sir Reg: 'at the heart of the union'

The Ulster Unionist Party kicks off the Northern Ireland party conference season in Belfast this weekend.

In its last conference before the general election the party will be keen to publicise its electoral pact with the Conservative Party.

Questions remain over the attitude of the UUP's only MP, Lady Hermon. She has a long record of supporting the Labour government in the House of Commons.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, will be the guest speaker.

Lady Hermon has made it clear that she will not stand for election under the Conservative and Unionist banner, or take the Tory whip at Westminster.

Shortlist

The Conservative Party has selected the former Alliance Party Euro candidate, Ian Parsley, for Lady Hermon's North Down constituency.

Under the terms of the electoral pact, the UUP and the Conservatives each selects a candidate for a given constituency and the joint candidate will be selected from the shortlist of two.

Lady Hermon is the UUP's sole remaining MP.

The Ulster Unionists have chosen Lady Trimble as their candidate to face the DUP's Jeffrey Donaldson in the Lagan Valley constituency.

Her husband, Lord Trimble, fought a long campaign for dominance of the UUP with Mr Donaldson before quitting as party leader.

Sir Reg Empey recently addressed the Conservative party conference in Manchester.

He said he wanted to see Northern Ireland "at the very heart of the union".

Victims

The Politics Show will have full coverage of the Ulster Unionist Conference.

Party members will debate the issue of victims and dealing with the past, post-primary school transfer and the economy.

There will also be live coverage of the conference at 11.30 on BBC1 on Saturday and also on the BBC news website.