James Frederick Nicholson (born 29 January 1945) is a Northern Irish

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movem ...

(UUP) politician, who served as a

Member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

(MEP) for

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

from 1989 to 2019. Prior to his election to the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

, Nicholson had been the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for Newry and Armagh from 1983 until his defeat the by-elections of 1986, when he and others resigned and stood again to protest against the

Anglo-Irish Agreement The Anglo-Irish Agreement was a 1985 treaty between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland which aimed to help bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The treaty gave the Irish government an advisory role in Northern Irela ...

; Nicholson lost his seat to

Seamus Mallon Seamus Frederick Mallon (; 17 August 1936 – 24 January 2020) was an Irish politician who served as deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2001 and Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) from 1979 to 2 ...

of the

Social Democratic and Labour Party The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland ...

(SDLP), the only seat to be lost.

Career

Nicholson was born in 1945 in

Armagh Armagh ( ; ga, Ard Mhacha, , "Macha's height") is the county town of County Armagh and a city in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Pri ...

. Educated locally, he later worked as a farmer on the family farm. He joined the

in the early 1970s and was the Secretary/Organiser of Mid-South Armagh Unionist Association from 1973 to 1983. He was elected to his first public office in 1976 as a member of

council; he served until 1997 and was chairman of the council in 1994–95. From 1982 to 1986, Nicholson was a member of the

Northern Ireland Assembly sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie , legislature = 7th Northern Ireland Assembly, Seventh Assembly , coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg , coa_res = 250px , house_type = Unicameralism, Unicameral , hou ...

Westminster

Nicholson was elected as the

(MP) for

Newry and Armagh Newry and Armagh can refer to: * Newry and Armagh (Assembly constituency) *Newry and Armagh (UK Parliament constituency) Newry and Armagh is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Mickey Brady o ...

in the 1983 general election for the UUP. At

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...

, he served on the

Agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

Select Committee. Along with all other unionist MPs, he

resigned Resignation is the formal act of leaving or quitting one's office or position. A resignation can occur when a person holding a position gained by election or appointment steps down, but leaving a position upon the expiration of a term, or choos ...

from the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

in December 1985 as part of a wider protest against the

of that year and to secure a renewed mandate from their electors. A

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

to fill his seat took place in January 1986. Nicholson, who was defending the nationalist-majority

constituency in the by-election, was the only resigning MP not to re-win his seat, losing it to

of the moderate nationalist

(SDLP) in the by-election. He contested the seat again at the 1987 general election but demographics in the area had shifted against unionism; nationalist and republican candidates have held it ever since.

European Parliament

At the 1989 election to the

, he was elected as a

for

. He retained this seat in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

and

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

although never reaching a quota of first preference votes. On each occasion, he was re-elected with the help of transfers from other candidates, under Northern Ireland's EU election system of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

using the

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

. In

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, running as a

Conservatives and Unionists The Ulster Conservatives and Unionists, officially registered as the ''Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force'' (''UCUNF''), was an electoral alliance in Northern Ireland between the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Conservative ...

candidate, he was elected second ahead of the

Democratic Unionist Party The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a unionist, loyalist, and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who led the party for the next 37 years. Currently led by J ...

, who for the first time failed to reach quota in a European Parliament election. Nicholson was initially a member of the

European People's Party group The European People's Party Group (EPP Group) is a centre-right political group of the European Parliament consisting of Member of the European Parliament, deputies (MEPs) from the member parties of the European People's Party (EPP). Sometimes ...

in the

. In 1997, however, he transferred to the

eurosceptic Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies, and seek reform ...

Independents for a Europe of Nations Independents for a Europe of Nations was a Eurosceptic political group with seats in the European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of ...

group. He served as vice-chairman of the group for two years. In 1999, he joined the

European Democrats The European Democrats were a loose association of conservative political parties in Europe. It was a political group in the European Parliament from 1979 until 1992, when it became a subgroup of the European People's Party–European Democrat ...

wing of the European People's Party - European Democrats group, the largest group in the Parliament, a eurosceptic wing which also contained the UK's

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

MEPs. He was one of six

Quaestors A ( , , ; "investigator") was a public official in Ancient Rome. There were various types of quaestors, with the title used to describe greatly different offices at different times. In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials who ...

in the European Parliament, becoming the first ever MEP from Northern Ireland to hold such a senior position when elected on 21 July 2004; he was re-elected in 2007. In 2009 he was elected as a Conservatives and Unionists candidate and subsequently joined the

European Conservatives and Reformists The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is a soft Eurosceptic, anti- federalist political group of the European Parliament. The ECR is the parliamentary group of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR Party) European pol ...

Group. He served on the European Parliament's Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety between 2014 and 2017. Nicholson describes himself as a "euro-realist"; he is opposed to the creation of a

federal Europe The United States of Europe (USE), the European State, the European Federation and Federal Europe, is the hypothetical scenario of the European integration leading to formation of a sovereign superstate (similar to the United States of Americ ...

and is against the adoption of the

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

as the

currency of the United Kingdom Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...

. He does, however, believe that the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

has been good for Northern Ireland in relation to funding and infrastructure. In 2016, Nicholson voiced his concerns about the way in which the EU has changed since he first became an MEP. He retired at the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held between 23 and 26 May 2019, the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent more than 512 million peopl ...

. His party lost the seat at the election to

Naomi Long Naomi Rachel Long MLA (née Johnston; born 13 December 1971) is a Northern Irish politician who served as Minister of Justice in the Northern Ireland Executive from January 2020 to October 2022. She has served as leader of the Alliance Party ...

of the Alliance Party.

Personal life

Nicholson married Elizabeth Gibson in 1968 and had six sons and one daughter. His wife died in May 2015 after a long illness.

References

External links

Jim Nicholson WebsiteOfficial UUP biographyConservative Party Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholson, Jim 1945 births Living people Mayors of places in Northern Ireland MEPs for Northern Ireland 1989–1994 MEPs for Northern Ireland 1994–1999 MEPs for Northern Ireland 1999–2004 MEPs for Northern Ireland 2004–2009 MEPs for Northern Ireland 2009–2014 MEPs for Northern Ireland 2014–2019 Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Newry and Armagh (since 1983) Northern Ireland MPAs 1982–1986 Ulster Unionist Party members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom Ulster Unionist Party MEPs UK MPs 1983–1987 Members of Armagh City and District Council People from Armagh (city) Articles containing video clips