Mr Robinson said unionists want to see unionist parties co-operating, and revealed he has met with UUP leader Jon Burrows and has more meetings planned.<\/p>\n
The last Assembly election in 2022 saw Sinn F\u00e9in make history by being the first non-unionist party to top the poll, and Michelle O\u2019Neill become the first nationalist First Minister.<\/p>\n
Then Sinn F\u00e9in (27 MLAs) finished two seats ahead of the DUP (25), which now has 26 Assembly seats following the co-option of Peter Martin after the election of independent Alex Easton to Westminster<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n Asked whether he believes his party can top the poll and reclaim the post of first minister, Mr Robinson described a \u201chuge opportunity for the wider unionist community\u201d and called for unionist parties to co-operate.<\/p>\n He said the UUP benefited from co-operation in the past, referring to the election of Tom Elliott to the Fermanagh South Tyrone Westminster seat in 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cIf 2022 taught us anything it\u2019s that division costs \u2013 there are fewer unionists around the Executive table because of division within unionism, and so I believe that in this election in May, unionism can win if it is prepared to co-operate,\u201d he told Press Association.<\/p>\n \u201cI am willing to co-operate with other unionists. That\u2019s not a new thing. I benefited from co-operation in 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Ulster Unionists benefited from co-operation in 2015, and actually throughout the history of our party there has been a willingness to co-operate within the wider strategic interests of unionism.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not for us; it\u2019s to advance the principles that we have, the benefits of being in being in the United Kingdom<\/a>, the benefits from Northern Ireland<\/a>, and benefiting through cultural and historic and family and economic ties right throughout this United Kingdom, being a part of the sixth largest economy in the world, all of that is beneficial for Northern Ireland and for all of our people.<\/p>\n \u201cThe opportunity is for unionism to win, but it\u2019ll only happen, if individual parties with, sometimes simply nuanced differences, are able to co-operate and collaborate to deliver for people rather than only ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Robinson said it is also an opportunity for TUV leader Jim Allister and his party.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone should have veto on this process. I don\u2019t think anyone should come in with preconceived notions or an agenda, because the people that we represent require it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re asking it of us. I\u2019m more than willing to have those conversations, and I\u2019ll do that in a collective way.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether others are as enthusiastic or not remains to be seen but these conversations need to happen privately, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s worth going through all of the options or all of the various twists and turns.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I know is our electorate require it. They ask it all of us.<\/p>\n \u201cThey will not tolerate egos getting in the way, and nor will they tolerate some misplaced ambition to upturn party strengths, party positions, they\u2019ll not take that only to find that in May 2027, unionism collectively is weakened and diminished because individual leaders prepared for themselves first, rather than collective calls.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI see Jim quite often in Westminster. He knows that there\u2019s an interest in these discussions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had previous discussions that were hosted with the Orange Order in Schomburg House about wider co-operation.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think the onus is on all of us to engage productively and with an open mind and faithfully in these discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Mr Burrows said he was prepared to talk to any unionist about maximising the unionist vote, but also said he was aiming to see the UUP return to its former strength of being the largest unionist party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-774199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"TUV](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/27fcfd4a22bfb12322b5bbb872b63b6cY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzg5NjczMTc4-2.85124083.jpg\")
TUV leader Jim Allister speaking during a press conference in the Great Hall in Stormont, Belfast (Liam McBurney\/PA) (PA Wire)<\/p>\n