{"id":682241,"date":"2026-01-08T13:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T13:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/682241\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T13:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T13:01:11","slug":"jon-burrows-joins-race-for-uup-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/682241\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Burrows joins race for UUP leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

He described himself as an “unapologetic unionist who will always advocate confidently for Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom”.<\/p>\n

Under his leadership, Burrows said the UUP will be “clear, credible and on the front foot”. <\/p>\n

He said his priorities would be competence and delivery, cutting waste, economic growth, and better public services. <\/p>\n

Burrows also said he would seek to attract more women and young people to the UUP.<\/p>\n

“One female MLA out of nine is not good enough. I will address these issues with urgency”, he said. <\/p>\n

Formal nominations opened on Wednesday and will close on 15 January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As part of this process, the party will also host two internal, members-only, hustings events to allow prospective candidates to engage directly with the membership.<\/p>\n

There has also been speculation that the current deputy leader, Robbie Butler, who is from the liberal wing of the party will stand for the leadership.<\/p>\n

BBC News NI understands that both Burrows and Butler approached Diana Armstrong to be their running mate. <\/p>\n

Her constituency represents a large swathe of grassroots UUP voters who will have a say in any contest.<\/p>\n

Armstrong refused to comment on those discussions but said she had backed Burrows because he is a man of integrity and that the party needed “fresh thinking”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He described himself as an “unapologetic unionist who will always advocate confidently for Northern Ireland’s place in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-682241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115859612305513427","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}