Defying tradition

His business background, praise from Sinn Féin and hard work in constituencies set him apart. But can he save the UUP party? Anton McCabe profiles Reg Empey

New Ulster Unionist Party leader Sir Reg Empey is the complete party insider. He is also unusual, as a businessman involved in Northern politics. Over the past generation, business people have tended to withdraw from open political involvement, seeing taking a political stance as possibly alienating customers. They got on with making money while British ministers saw to administration.

Fifty-seven year old Empey withdrew from his retail clothing business when he became a full-time political representative, but is still highly interested in economic issues.

In what was previously unthinkable for a Unionist leader, he is not an Orangeman, having resigned from the Order over a decade ago. He has held a number of positions in the UUP, served on a whole number of outside bodies, and was knighted in 1999. He was one of those who negotiated the Good Friday agreement of 1998, along with David Trimble, but managed to avoid the odium that stuck to his predecessor.

He had the backing of the UUP establishment, with the majority of party Assembly members behind him, and Jim Nicholson, the party's MEP.

Politically he represents a seamless continuity from Trimble.

Their careers followed a similar pattern, from hard-liners to compromisers.

Like Trimble, in the early 1970s he left the Unionist Party for the hard-line Vanguard Unionist Progressive party, which flirted with paramilitarism.

He played a backroom role in support of the May 1974 Ulster Workers' Council strike, which brought down the power-sharing Sunningdale executive.

Empey was chair of Vanguard, but after leader Bill Craig came out in support of powersharing, Empey moved to the more hard-line United Ulster Unionist Party and became its deputy leader.The UUUP never flourished, and became extinct in 1982. In 1985 he took part in protests against the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and then began his move to the centre.

While the political content is none too different to Trimble, the personal style is very different. Empey is personally approachable where his predecessor was not.

He showed this on election day – waiting outside the Ulster Unionist Council to shake hands with delegates after his election.

In the Assembly, he worked well with Sinn Féin: senior Sinn Féin member Pat Doherty was chair of his departmental committee. When Sinn Féin Assembly member John Kelly was asked to choose a minister he admired, he chose Empey.

He has good relations with a number of politicians in the Republic, notably Michael McDowell.

His public persona may be one of the party grandee, but he has a good sense of humour, particularly after a few drinks. One of his party-pieces is a wickedly accurate imitation of former North Down MP Bob McCartney, leader and sole elected representative of the United Kingdom Unionist Party.

Empey was one of Trimble's closest political allies but, towards the end, distanced himself.

There were allegations that he was planning a "dream team" leadership challenge, running on a joint ticket with the anti-Agreement Jeffrey Donaldson as Deputy Leader. He also opposed the party taking disciplinary action against Donaldson and the other rebel MPs, David Burnside and the Rev Martin Smyth.

Empey's background is solidly upper-middle class. He was brought up in Shandon Park, on the leafier edges of East Belfast. His parents were both in the retail clothing business. He was educated at preparatory school, then as a boarder at the Royal School in Armagh. He studied economics at Queen's; while some of his Protestant contemporaries were moving to socialism and the civil rights movement, he joined the Young Unionists.

Empey is very different to the old style of Ulster Unionist in that he is willing to tackle the grind of constituency work. In 1985 he was elected to Belfast City Council for the Pottinger area, which is largely inner-city working class with a small leafier fringe. When he started doing constituency work he was genuinely shocked at some of the social conditions he found. Community workers speak well of him, and find him responsive.

He has been able to maintain an apparatus in East Belfast, at a time when the UUP has been in serious decline elsewhere. Empey was twice Lord Mayor of Belfast, in 1989 and again in 1993. During his first term, he braved a DUP picket to invite then Taoiseach Charlie Haughey to a business conference.

As Mayor, he won praise from the unlikely direction of former Sinn Féin councillor turned media mogul Máirtín Ó Muileoir. Ó Muileoir said Empey was fair, and knew the old days of Unionist domination were over. "That's not to say that he didn't vote with the Unionists for a series of discriminatory measures – including denying a play park swings – but he did so with a studied weariness," said Ó Muileoir.

"He also intervened to help political opponents when real issues of business were at stake and took the monumental step – for which he could receive not one single vote – of setting up the West Belfast Task force to tackle unemployment and poverty on both sides of the peaceline in the west of the city."

In 1998 he was elected to the Assembly, and re-elected last year. As Enterprise, Trade and Investment Minister in the executive, he was efficient, and willing to work with nationalists.

His time was not without controversy, though. He supported the hiving-off, on long-term lease, of much of the site of Harland and Wolff Shipyard, which left the yard landlocked and too small to be viable. His stock is a lot lower among trade unionists than in the business community, because he is perceived as not delivering on employment. His constituency of East Belfast has been seriously hit by de-industrialisation. He was one of only two UUP candidates to increase his vote in the Westminster election, though failing to unseat the DUP's Peter Robinson in East Belfast.

At the start of his leadership, he has taken a more hardline stance, ruling out sharing power with Sinn Féin during the lifetime of the current Assembly.

"I don't think you could fill a telephone box with unionists out there that would be prepared to trust Sinn Féin, and I am not doing it," he said.

"So, I will wait to hear what they say and, more importantly, I will wait to see what they do. We had an understanding with Sinn Féin, not once, not twice but three times. Each time, it blew up in our faces; each time, the hand of friendship was not acceptable."

His leadership has only begun, he has risen to the top as a conciliator within a deeply divided party. The UUP has moved from being Northern Ireland's governing party for 50 years, to holding one seat out of 18 Northern Irish seats at Westminster.

Whether Empey can reverse that decline is open to question.

The low-profile Alan McFarland ran him close in the leadership election, showing that storm clouds can brew for him as well.