The leader of the United Kingdom Unionist Party has forecast he will retain the North Down Westminster seat in the election. He says his victory will be the "final nail in David Trimble's political coffin." Mr Robert McCartney, an anti-agreement unionist, yesterday predicted an "uncertain" future for the UUP leader if his party performed poorly at the polls.
"If he loses three or four other seats and fails to gain North Down then I think no one will be able to deny that there is a meltdown in his party."
Mr McCartney was speaking at the launch of the UKUP election manifesto, "A Manifesto that Faces the Truth", which outlines the party's position on the Assembly, social issues, the economy, agriculture, education, health and wider political issues.
He said his party aimed to continue providing "critical opposition" to the current political dispensation. The UKUP was the promoter of truth and reality and the guardian of the Union, he said. According to Mr McCartney, a decisive majority of the pro-Union people now accepted they were deceived with the Belfast Agreement. "This party is determined that those who use or threaten political violence and retain the means to do so shall have no say in the government of Northern Ireland," he said.
"We believe that the institutions created by the Agreement are designed as a transitional phase in the overall policy of disengagement from Northern Ireland by the British government," added Mr McCartney.
He stressed the Assembly structures required downsizing and did not offer value for money at a cost of £750 million per annum.
He called for an increase in resources for the RUC and said paramilitaries were attempting to fill the vacuum of a depleted police force. "Central government must be called upon to provide the resources needed to combat a crime wave which is the product of terrorist appeasement," he said.
Mr McCartney, who is the party's only Westminster candidate, said the party's 11 local government candidates would enforce "fairness, integrity and truth" if elected.
"A fresh, dynamic approach needs injecting into local Government, and this party has the desire, capability and resolution to bring about such a transformation."