Following the successful Ulster Workers Council (UWC) strike of 1974, which brought down a well-intentioned but ill-fated attempt to restore devolution in the province, the then Secretary of State Merlyn Rees called it an ‘outbreak of Ulster nationalism’. During a subsequent debate in the House of Commons on 4 June, the term was thoroughly examined. Former Prime Minister Edward Heath considered it ‘a misnomer, and a dangerous one’, not conforming to any understanding of nationalism in ‘any common, modern form’. It could only be Ulster nationalism ‘if there were a genuine desire by both communities or by a majority of the majority community to go it alone for independence’; Heath preferred to call it ‘a Protestant backlash’ (HC Deb 04 Jun 1974 vol 874 c1064).

This might have been a ‘modern’ definition of nationalism but also a very narrow one; the minority position of the SNP and Plaid in February's election hardly meant it did not constitute nationalism. In the same debate, Mark Hughes (Durham) saw the UWC strike as a new ‘expression’ of a longstanding phenomenon (c1115), while Gerry Fitt of the SDLP believed ‘Ulster nationalism’ actually meant a ‘Protestant ascendancy’ that wanted Northern Ireland to revert to Stormont majority rule (c1135). Finally, Robert Redmond (Bolton West) resented the term ‘loyalist’:

This came closest to capturing a more convincing definition of ‘nationalist unionism’ as it existed in Northern Ireland, a nationalism that claimed ‘loyalty’ to the Crown (if not the 1801 Act of Union) while viewing its ethnic ‘community’ as the true embodiment of what was usually called ‘Ulster’. On this, however, the literature is more divided than that in Scotland and Wales.