Roy Thompson (born 1946) 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 ...

politician, initially with 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 ...

(DUP) and later with 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 movem ...

(UUP). A dairy farmer by profession Thompson was involved in politics from an early age and was a founder member of the DUP, serving on the new party's executive.W.D. Flackes & Sydney Elliott, ''Northern Ireland: A Political Directory 1968–1993'', The Blackstaff Press, 1994, p. 322 He was elected to Antrim Borough Council in the 1981 elections and the following year was elected to 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 ...

for South Antrim. Whilst serving as deputy mayor of Antrim in 1992 he resigned from the DUP for unknown reasons, although he stated publicly that his decision had nothing to do with

Ian Paisley Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014) was a Northern Irish loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and First ...

's leadership. Thompson has subsequently changed political allegiance on a number of occasions. In the 1993 local elections he was returned to Antrim Council as an

Independent Unionist Independent Unionist has been a label sometimes used by candidates in elections in the United Kingdom, indicating a support for British unionism (not to be confused with trade unionism). It is most popularly associated with candidates in electi ...

before in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

retaining the seat as a UUP member. He remained a councillor until

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

when he was defeated, having returned to the DUP. Once again representing the DUP Thompson was re-elected to the council in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

. Roy Thompson was convicted of subsidy fraud in November 2003.
The Free Library

References

1946 births Living people Democratic Unionist Party politicians Ulster Unionist Party councillors Northern Ireland MPAs 1982–1986 Members of Antrim Borough Council Farmers from Northern Ireland {{NorthernIreland-politician-stub