Unionist and Conservative

The Unioinist and Conservative Party is a centre-right political party in Halsberg which campaigns for the increased unity and centralisation amongst the Twelve Commonwealths. It also supports a libertarian social platform, while remaining conservative in economic policy. It currently commands a slim majority in the Parliamentary Council, holding 312 out of 620 seats. It also enjoys a more substantial majority of senators, 121 out of 180. Local party groups, accountable to the wider UCP, also account for 987 of the 1,563 seats in the legislatures of several commonwealths.

The party was born of the merger of the Conservatives for Halsberg and the Halsberg United Party, both of which had fell into relative obscurity by the late sixties. Originally a much more religious conservative group, much of the party's early support came from members of the Catholic Church, with the Commonwealth of Golgosa becoming the new party's heartland. Outside of Golgosa, however, the UCP fared badly, with candidates often placing near the bottom. This religious conservative angle was largely abandoned in the mid 1990s in response to a particularly poor showing in the 1996 Parliamentary Council election. Though the party's official religion remains Roman Catholicism, its modern policies and outlook is almost exclusively secular. Over the last decade, the party has developed a new platform of fiscal conservatism, mixed with a libertarian conservative ideology on social issues. This modernisation, as some call it, is often credited to Michael Solomon, the incumbent High President. Going into the election of 2009 with this new manifesto, along with a much more sophistacted grassroots infrastructure, the UCP was able to win a majority of seats in the Parliamentary Council, and later the Senate. Michael Solomon, who had become UCP leader in 2006, was elected as High President in 2010, the first member of the UCP to hold the title.