#uup18 Lord Empey opening Ulster Unionist Party conference in Armagh

#uup18 Blog post at https://sluggerotoole.com/2018/10/20/uup-conference-in-a-battle-to-save-the-union-from-the-dup-speeches-audio-uup18/“I don’t think I’ve seen unionism in such a mess” said Lord Empey as he addressed UUP delegates gathered at Armagh City Hotel in his role as party chairman. He said that November marks 15 years “since the DUP took over the leadership of unionism”.“In that time they’ve turned the unionist majority into a minority; they’ve turned moderate nationalists into republicans. We now have a reputation for incompetence and corrupt government for how can it possibly be that Sinn Féin is able to say that ‘we must have integrity in government’? Can you believe it? But that is where they have brought us … A few weeks ago they [the DUP] were swaggering around Westminster as kingmakers; and now they’ve turned themselves in their own words into ballbreakers.”He added:“We’ve replaced traditional unionism with, it’s like kids released into a sweetie shop, they can’t keep their hands out of the jar”.