DUP European election candidate, Jim Allister QC, has this evening welcomed the official announcement of the merger between the Queen’s Unionist Association and the Queen’s Democratic Unionist Association.

Jim Allister said, “As the first Chairman of this Association back in 1971/72, it is a great pleasure to return on an occasion which signifies the confirmation of the DUP as the vehicle of Unionist opinion at Queen’s.

The amalgamation of the Unionist Association with the DUP Association, under the aegis of the DUP, typifies the Province-wide realignment of Unionism into the main Unionist Party, the DUP.  Unionist activists are voting with their feet and leaving behind the failures of the past so typified by Trimble Unionism.

The significance of this move at Queen’s for the future is immense.  It is the DUP which is providing the up and coming generation of Unionist activists and politicians. Even the most cursory examination of unionism will confirm that the preponderance of talent is now firmly within the DUP. 

Just as at Queen’s, unionists who face an aggressive republican axis, have united behind the DUP, so in the country resurgent unionism is coalescing within the DUP.  Likewise at the European Election, I believe the Unionist electorate, aware of the necessity of defeating Sinn Fein, will rally behind the standard which I carry and will use their first preference votes to ensure that the IRA is denied the propaganda coup of topping the poll. I, therefore, call upon the general unionist community to follow the example of the unionist student community at QUB and unite behind the DUP in this election.”