William Martin Smyth (born 15 June 1931) is a
Northern Irish
Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...
unionist politician, who served as the
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 m ...
(UUP)
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 o ...
(MP) for
Belfast South from 1982 to 2005. He was a vice-president of the
Conservative Monday Club
The Conservative Monday Club (usually known as the Monday Club) is a British political pressure group, aligned with the Conservative Party, though no longer endorsed by it. It also has links to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Ulster Unioni ...
.
He is also an ordained minister of the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI; ga, Eaglais Phreispitéireach in Éirinn; Ulster-Scots: ''Prisbytairin Kirk in Airlann'') is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the Republic of Ireland, and the largest Protestant denomination in ...
and was minister of Raffrey,
County Down
County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to th ...
from 1957 to 1963 and of Alexandra Church,
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
1963–1982.
Early life
Smyth was brought up in the
Donegall Road area of
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
and attended
Methodist College Belfast
God with us
, established = 1865
, type = Voluntary grammar
, religion = Interdenominational
, principal = Jenny Lendrum
, chair_label = Chairwoman
, chair = Revd. Dr Janet Unsworth
, founder ...
and
Trinity College Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
.
Beginning of political career
Smyth became
Grand Master of the
Orange Order
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots people, Ulster Sco ...
in 1971, in what was seen at the time as a working-class "grass roots" revolt against the till middle-class leadership of the Order. (He remained Grand Master until 1996). In the 1970s, he was a Deputy Leader of the Vanguard movement which had emerged as a faction within the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). However, when this faction split from the UUP to form the
Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party, Smyth chose to remain with the UUP. His name was linked in the ''
Belfast Telegraph
The ''Belfast Telegraph'' is a daily newspaper published in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Independent News & Media. Its editor is Eoin Brannigan. Reflecting its unionist tradition, the paper has historically been "favoured by the Protestant po ...
'' with the UUP candidacy for the
Belfast North constituency in 1974. However, he did not stand there, and the following year, he was elected to the
Constitutional Convention for Belfast South, polling more than double the electoral quota.
[South Belfast 1973–1984]
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Member of Parliament
He was selected to fill the vacancy caused by the murder of
Robert Bradford. Smyth was consequently elected Member of Parliament in a
1982 by-election, receiving 17,123 votes.
Later the same year, he was elected to the
Northern Ireland Assembly
sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie
, legislature = Seventh Assembly
, coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg
, coa_res = 250px
, house_type = Unicameral
, house1 =
, leader1_type = S ...
, again polling double the electoral quota.
He along with all other Unionist MPs resigned his seat in 1985 in protest at the
Anglo-Irish Agreement. He successfully defended his seat in the subsequent by election. In his paper "A Federated People" (published by the Joint Unionist Working Party in 1987), Smyth proposed a federal United Kingdom with the state governments of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each being autonomous from each other and, most significantly, fully independent from the federal parliament and government of the United Kingdom at Westminster.
Smyth was on the parliamentary advisory board of
Western Goals (UK) Western Goals may refer to:
*The Western Goals Foundation, a private intelligence dissemination network active on the right-wing in the United States
*The Western Goals Institute
Western Goals Institute (WGI) was a far-right pressure group and t ...
which held a well-attended fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in October 1988 on the subject of "International Terrorism – how the West can fight back". He was one of numerous high-profile speakers including
General Sir Walter Walker,
Andrew Hunter MP,
Sir Alfred Sherman and
Harvey Ward
Harvey Grenville Ward (1927 – April 1995) was a Director-General of the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation noted for his anticommunism and for supporting Ian Smith's government in Rhodesia and South Africa. Ward was a leading member of the ...
. Hunter and Ward both gave considerable detail to the meeting concerning top-level links between the IRA and ANC.
Having won first place in the ballot for Private Members' Bills, Smyth successfully introduced the Disabled Persons (Northern Ireland) Bill to afford disabled people in Northern Ireland analogous rights for disabled people elsewhere in the United Kingdom as provided for in the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986. Smyth's Bill received Royal Assent in 1989.
David Trimble's leadership
He
ran for the leadership of the UUP in 1995 after
James Molyneaux stood down but lost to
David Trimble
William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, (15 October 1944 – 25 July 2022) was a British politician who was the first First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002, and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 2005. He wa ...
. He was opposed to the
Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...
, but he was considered a moderate in the early 1990s. He was condemned in 1993 by 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 ...
for suggesting that talks with
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gr ...
might be possible. He challenged Trimble for the
party leadership in 2000 and was again unsuccessful. He was unsuccessfully challenged for the UUP nomination in Belfast South by
Michael McGimpsey
Michael McGimpsey (born 1 July 1948) is a former Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician who was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast South from 1998 to 2016.
McGimpsey was born in Donaghadee, County Down and was educat ...
before the
2001 general election, and went on to hold the seat. In 2001 he was elected to the position of President of the party. In 2003, he, along with
David Burnside
David Wilson Boyd Burnside (born 24 August 1951) is an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Antrim from 2001 to 2005.
Burnside was also a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for So ...
and
Jeffrey Donaldson
Sir Jeffrey Mark Donaldson (born 7 December 1962) is a Northern Irish politician who has served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) since June 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lagan Valley since 1997, and leade ...
, resigned the party whip due to disagreements over the British Irish Declaration of 2003. He attempted to dissuade Donaldson from resigning from the party entirely. In January 2004, Smyth and Burnside retook the UUP whip. Later that year he lost the party Presidency in the annual election at the
Ulster Unionist Council, polling 329 votes to
Lord Rogan, who won with 407 votes. The same meeting saw
an unsuccessful challenge to Trimble's leadership.
End of political career and 2005 general election
In January 2005, Smyth announced he would be stepping down from Parliament at the next election to spend more time with his wife. He ended his House of Commons career in May 2005. During the election Smyth courted controversy when he and former Ulster Unionist leader
James Molyneaux appeared in a photograph with
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 ...
candidate
Jimmy Spratt on Spratt's election literature.
[Kerr, Michael ''David Trimble and the 2005 General election'', Dublin (2005) pg 58] Smyth denied endorsing Spratt stating:
The candidates Smyth did canvass for were
David Burnside
David Wilson Boyd Burnside (born 24 August 1951) is an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Antrim from 2001 to 2005.
Burnside was also a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for So ...
in
South Antrim and Rodney McCune in
North Antrim.
In the event neither Unionist candidate won in South Belfast, with the seat being taken by the
Social Democratic and Labour Party's
Alasdair McDonnell
Dr Alasdair McDonnell (born 1 September 1949) is an Irish politician who is a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and was its leader from 2011 to 2015. He was the Member of Parliament for Belfast South from 2005 to 2017 and ...
amidst a split in the vote between the two Unionist parties.
South Belfast
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References
External links
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Smyth, Martin
1931 births
Living people
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Belfast constituencies (since 1922)
Ulster Unionist Party members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom
Members of the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention
Northern Ireland MPAs 1982–1986
People of The Troubles (Northern Ireland)
UK MPs 1979–1983
UK MPs 1983–1987
UK MPs 1987–1992
UK MPs 1992–1997
UK MPs 1997–2001
UK MPs 2001–2005
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
People educated at Methodist College Belfast
Grand Masters of the Orange Order
Presbyterian ministers from Northern Ireland