Harris: UUP and DUP should merge

SENATOR Eoghan Harris last night urged the North’s two unionist parties to merge and help stop Sinn Féin’s electoral successes on north and south of the Border.

Mr Harris urged Reg Empey’s Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to become one political organisation.

“There no longer is a real foundation for the continued existence of two Unionist parties,” the Bertie Ahern-appointed senator said in Belfast at last night’s annual dinner of the Castlereagh central branch of the UUP. “(The DUP’s) Peter Robinson has suggested that your parties should meet to discuss possible areas of co-operation electorally.