New UUP leader wants it to become largest unionist party

Jon Burrows has said he wants the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to be "the biggest party in unionism again" as he officially becomes the new party leader.

"I want us to see us with more seats in councils, more seats in the assembly and more seats in Westminster," he said.

Burrows is a former police officer who was unopposed for the post, which is regarded as one of the toughest in Northern Ireland politics.

He became an MLA for North Antrim in the summer of 2025 and has enjoyed a meteoric rise.

"Under my leadership the Ulster Unionist Party will not be engaged in a culture war," he said.

"Our job is to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland on the core issues that they face.

"Actually we need to spend less time debating what happens around the world, less time debating symbols, less time debating issues of constitutionality and more time debating public services."

He added that he was "very respectful to the Irish language...but I do want to uphold our place in the United Kingdom".

The party's new deputy leader, Diana Armstrong, said she was taking up the role for the women who came before her in the party and for the women "we want to bring with us".

"I want to send a signal that we are listening, that we value what woman can bring to the party," she said.

Like Armstrong, Burrows has never put his name before the electorate for a seat in the assembly, having been co-opted to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of another MLA.

Since becoming an MLA he has been a man in a hurry, which appears to have impressed the wider membership - although there is no way of proving it since he became leader without a contest.

He is the fifth Ulster Unionist leader in a row to take the position without a challenge since Mike Nesbitt beat John McCallister in 2012.

Burrows publicly called for a contest but the one potential challenger, outgoing deputy leader Robbie Butler, decided against standing.

Well-placed sources say that possibly the majority of the party's nine MLAs have deep-seated misgivings about Burrows as leader or are openly hostile.

Ahead of Saturday's meeting one source said: "I think it would be foolish to attempt a group photo let's put it like that."

The media was barred from the meeting at which Burrows was formally elected, which is accessible to party members only.

Burrows and Armstrong instead spoke to the media and took questions afterwards.

One question has already been answered.

He intends to keep the party inside the executive, for now anyway, and retain his predecessor Nesbitt as health minister.

No-one under the age of 40 is likely to believe this but there was a time when the UUP was interesting.

Too interesting for its own good.

It was a godsend for journalists for whom watching the once mighty behemoth rip itself apart in public was a full-time job.

Whether it was its former HQ Cunningham House, the Ramada Hotel or the Ulster Hall, meetings of the UUP's ruling council were the gift that kept on giving to the party's great detriment.

It's survival - or more specifically David Trimble's survival as the leader of Unionism - was regarded as so crucial to the peace process that Tony Blair once postponed an assembly election he feared it would lose.

But he couldn't avoid the inevitable.

The Democratic Unionist Party won the subsequent poll, eventually taking the spoils by going into government with Sinn Fein.

And the UUP? It became an also-ran and there it remains until now.

Jon Burrows is the latest new beginning and arguably one of the most interesting.

He's from a non-political background and seems prepared to take on all-comers no matter how unpopular that might make him with the party's old guard.

But that old guard has failed to return the party to anything like its previous lofty position.

Now Burrows intends to try doing it his way.

At the very least it should be fun to watch.