Hugh Ross (politician)

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Hugh Ross is a Presbyterian minister and member of the Orange Order, who was previously the leader of the now defunct Ulster Independence Movement.

Ross enjoyed relatively high vote shares as a candidate at both the Upper Bann by-election of 1990 and the 1994 European elections. He headed the list for the UIM at the 1996 elections for the Northern Ireland Forum (a precursor to the Northern Ireland Assembly) although he failed to get elected and has since largely left politics, emerging from time to time to write articles for the Ulster Third Way journal, Ulster Nation.

Ross' retirement from the political scene was in part caused by accusations in a Channel 4 documentary that he was part of a committee which oversaw collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary and loyalists [1]. Although the allegations were unproven, the incident damaged Ross's reputation and saw membership of the UIM dwindle.