Member's statement: Ulster Unionist Party: Record in Government
Member's statement by Mr Philip McGuigan on .
- MLA
- Mr Philip McGuigan
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 3 November 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Ulster Unionist Party: Record in Government
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5807601
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Jon Burrows, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, who has yet to receive a single vote in any election, said last week that he finds the fact that Sinn Féin gets so many votes in the North "deeply uncomfortable". We have been witnessing the DUP and the Orange Order try to turn the clock back 28 years on the Garvaghy Road to a time when they felt comfortable forcing a triumphalist and sectarian march through a nationalist community. Listening to Jon Burrows, you would think that he wants to turn back the clock even further to a time before 1969 when his party, the Ulster Unionist Party, felt very comfortable not giving Catholics the vote at all. Let us be clear: Jon Burrows's comments are disgraceful and display the deeply arrogant, superior, supremacist attitude that allowed the state governed by his party to treat Catholics, nationalists and republicans as second-class citizens for so long. For over 50 years after partition, his party governed an Orange state in which Catholic families faced discrimination in housing, Catholics and nationalists faced discrimination in employment and electoral boundaries were designed and drawn to maintain unionist control. I wonder whether Jon Burrows would feel more comfortable with the scenario that existed in Derry when his party ensured that a nationalist majority was denied its rightful representation through gerrymandering. That was the UUP's record in government. We will take no lectures from Jon Burrows on democracy. He also likes to lecture us on law and order, so let us look at the UUP's record on that. The Special Powers Act 1922 provided sweeping powers of repression with the sole aim of defending the unionist state for a unionist population. Its powers included internment without trial; draconian policing powers, prohibitions and censorship; and even the right to carry out public whippings. Sinn Féin was banned, republican commemorations were prohibited and political expression was suppressed. All those laws enforced discrimination, overseen by a discredited RUC and a sectarian militia in the form of the B-Specials, and, when people organised peacefully for civil rights, fair housing, fair employment and one person, one vote, they were brutalised by the armed wing of the unionist and Orange state at the behest of the Ulster Unionist Party.
That is the history of the Ulster Unionist Party. Thankfully, those days are gone, and, if that equality makes Jon Burrows uncomfortable, tough. The days when unionism could determine whose voice counted are long over. The days of supremacy and domination are over. There are no second-class citizens any more. There is no going back.
431 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations
Flagged on a second assessment, because Jev’s answers did not settle it. The reasons are given below.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.85 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- Criteria met: Identity framing (0.95); Dog-whistle messaging (0.70); Controversy escalation (0.76).
- The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.50).
- Subject area: Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations.
- The answers did not meet either automatic threshold.
What a flag means. A flag means the activity contains at least one instance of culture-war framing that met the published test. It does not mean the whole activity is divisive, or that its substantive arguments are wrong.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Second assessment
Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 3 November 2026. How the second assessment works
- Verdict
- Flagged
- Public interest or divisiveness
- Mainly advances divisiveness
Against the published rubric
The statement responds to a remark by another party's leader by casting that party as holding a "deeply arrogant, superior, supremacist attitude". It also describes a contested parade as "triumphalist and sectarian", the former state as an "Orange state", and the police and B-Specials as "the armed wing of the unionist and Orange state". This is an identity-based attack on a party and on unionist and Orange institutions as a group, framed as a contest over which community dominates ("The days when unionism could determine whose voice counted are long over"). It meets the rubric on identity framing, communal antagonism and escalation, and it raises no practical policy or scrutiny question.
Public interest or divisiveness
Historical discrimination in housing, employment and electoral boundaries is a real and documented subject. Here, however, it is used to score a point against a rival party and to tie present-day unionism, the Orange Order and policing to supremacy and repression. The statement does not address any current decision, service or law; its function is to keep a communal argument going in strongly loaded terms. It mainly advances division rather than the general public interest.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.95 | Yes |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.49 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.38 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.70 | Yes |
| Controversy escalation | 0.76 | Yes |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.09 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.85 | Above flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing | 0.02 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.48 |
| Adopts it (chosen) | 0.50 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.98 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.02 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 3 November 2026 at 13:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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