It’s been a busy week or so for the Ulster Unionist Party in Fermanagh/South Tyrone. Tom Elliott — or Baron Elliott of Ballinamallard, as I must get used to calling him — has been elevated to the House of Lords.

In so doing he has joined a fairly exclusive political club: having been a local councillor, MLA, UUP leader, MP and now UUP Peer.

And, to save you the trouble of checking Google, David Trimble was neither a local councillor nor UUP Peer and Reg Empey wasn’t an MP.

The closest, I suppose, is John Taylor, who was an MP in the NI Parliament, a member of the 1973 Assembly, the 1975 Convention, the 1982 Assembly, the 1996 Forum, the 1998 Assembly, an MEP, MP, deputy leader of the party and a Peer.

Tom’s elevation created a space for an MLA and he has been replaced by Diana Armstrong, who will now have the opportunity to speak in the same chamber where her father, Harry, used to speak when he was the member of the NI Parliament for Enniskillen between May 1954 and 1973.

He was first appointed Minister for Agriculture under Lord Brookeborough (a giant of Fermanagh unionism) and became leader of the party in January 1974. Diana has big boots to fill, in all senses.

Meanwhile, what of the UUP? Last Saturday it ratified Mike Nesbitt as leader for the second time, making him the seventh successor to David Trimble.

Leaders Each of those leaders — Reg Empey, Tom Elliott, Mike Nesbitt, Robin Swann, Steve Aiken and Doug Beattie — has done their best to rescue the party from the electoral doldrums in which Trimble left it.

Yet none of them made the crucial breakthrough when it came to piling on votes and seats.

Nesbitt had a mixed legacy in his first stint in the role between 2012 and 2017; with the party winning a handful of extra councillors in 2014 and two MPs (Elliott and Kinahan) in 2015.

But while the party welcomed those results it still didn’t represent the levels of success required for it to win back the former UUP voters who had shifted to Alliance (especially in the east of NI), or eat into the lead which the DUP had been building over it since 2003.

Nesbitt’s decision to resign in March 2017 — before the assembly results were all declared — was regarded by some as a moment of recklessness.

But I could see his point. The result was much worse than the party had expected, and the finger of blame was pointed at him for his announcement, live on TV that, as part of his ‘Vote Mike, get Colum’ strategy, he would vote for the SDLP in East Belfast (the constituency in which he lived) before transferring to other unionists.

It was a stupid thing to say, not least because he hadn’t forewarned key members of the party; which is why, I think, he reckoned he had to fall on his sword.

The question, of course, is what he can do between now and the next election in 2027 which he wasn’t able to do in his previous five years as leader.

One thing he has in his favour is breathing space: in his first time round he had council elections, a general election, two assembly elections, an EU election and the Brexit referendum in fairly short order.

Preparing for elections takes a lot of time and also means a leader may have to shift focus and delay other plans.

But this time round there probably won’t be elections. He will have time to focus on other issues that matter to the party. But those issues also bring challenges.

There is a feeling in some quarters of the party that the structures need overhauled and that leadership chains of command need refined.

Yet that, in itself, is not enough, because overhaul and refining usually pushes already competing factions within the party towards just another form of collision. Reform for the sake of it rarely works.

Two problems The other thing he has to deal with is cooperation with other unionists, particularly the DUP. There are two problems there: nudging towards the DUP puts off UUP voters who have already shifted to Alliance and also puts off small-u unionists who are presently staying at home because they are uncomfortable with some manifestations of political unionism.

And he also has to bear in mind that cooperating with the DUP is probably of more electoral advantage to it than to the UUP.

Anyway, is it up to the UUP to pull the DUP out of its present hole?

Nesbitt says he wants to put much greater focus on policies, believing that it’s through policies (what is sometimes described as the ‘waking up each day and feeling good about yourself and good about Northern Ireland’ approach) that a party can grow its own particular identity.

Yet it’s difficult to do that in either a mandatory coalition (where you have just one minister), or as part of the official opposition, when your role is primarily to complain about others.

What the UUP membership wants more than anything, though, is demonstrable victory at elections.

It’s had all sorts of reforming, rejigging, repositioning, recalibrating and reinvention since David Trimble stood down in June 2005.

But none of it has really amounted to a hill of beans when it comes to extra votes, councillors, MLAs and MPs.

The membership is tired of tinkering. It’s tired of having to come to terms with disappointment after disappointment. Those members want a win because a win restores confidence.

And after almost twenty-five years of internal crises and external implosion they really do need something to cheer them up.

That task is now down to Mike Nesbitt. Unlike taking the helm in 2012 he knows what he’s letting himself in for.

I don’t want to add to his burden, but I will say this: if he doesn’t succeed this time, then I don’t see how the UUP survives as a credible, standalone voice of unionism.

Alex Kane is a columnist, political commentator and former director of communications for the UUP.