Former TV news presenter Mike Nesbitt makes comments before announcing his Ulster Unionist party leadership bid
Unionists should have nothing to fear from a border poll on the future of Northern Ireland in the UK, one of the contenders to lead the Ulster Unionist party has said.
Former Ulster Television News presenter Mike Nesbitt also said the Irish Republic could hold a parallel poll on whether it should rejoin the Commonwealth.
Nesbitt was responding to demands from the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, that a referendum be held in Northern Ireland to determine its constitutional status. Last week the Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, ruled out any border poll in the near future.
In an interview with the Guardian prior to announcing his leadership bid on Thursday morning, Nesbitt said he wanted to reach out to a substantial number of Catholic voters in Northern Ireland who were pro-union but traditionally turned off voting for unionist parties.
On a possible vote on whether Northern Ireland should stay in the United Kingdom similar to the referendum Alex Salmond is proposing in Scotland, Nesbitt said: "I don't think unionists should have anything to fear from a border poll but if we are going down that road why not have a poll on whether the Republic should rejoin the Commonwealth."
The former TV news anchorman said he wanted to attract "every person who is pro-union" to the Ulster Unionist party.
"Nothing that I believe in is defined by religion. At the heart of politics is the economy. If Sinn Féin had had their way on the economy we would have been trapped inside the eurozone with the euro and the crisis it has produced. Instead we belong to one of the top seven economies in the world by being in the UK.
I would argue that even those who would be aspirationally pro-united Ireland but would quietly utter under their breath: 'Please not yet.'"
Since the outgoing UUP leader, Tom Elliott, stepped down Nesbitt said he had been in "listening mode" within the party and scented a desire for radical change internally.
"There is an appetite to get this machine going again and a hunger to be positive," he said.
But he ruled out ejecting the UUP from the five-party coalition at Stormont, which is dominated by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin.
"We are a business as any party is and our business is measured in power not pounds and pence. I would not readily give up what power we had here. We also have to get back into the House of Commons. Politically we need to have better policies better communicated."
He sidestepped questions over the last UUP MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon, who left the party in protest at its link-up with David Cameron and the Conservative party, an alliance seen as disastrous for the Ulster Unionists. The party now has no representation in the House of Commons.
Asked about wooing back the North Down MP to the UUP fold, Nesbitt said: "I am focused on our internal relationships. We need to concentrate on our own relationships first."
Nesbitt's supporters claim he has received the backing of four assembly members at Stormont, two UUP members of the House of Lords and a number of young unionists.
However, the frontrunner remains Elliott's deputy, Danny Kennedy, who is expected to launch his bid for the leadership on Friday. The other runner in the field is South Down assembly member John McCallister, who has described himself as a liberal unionist.
The UUP will vote on their next leader at a special delegate conference in Belfast on 31 March. Once the dominant party in Northern Ireland, the UUP has been eclipsed as the leading unionist force by the Democratic Unionist party over the last decade as first Ian Paisley and later Peter Robinson shifted the latter party towards the centre ground and ultimately into a stable partnership with Sinn Féin.