Hugh Smyth

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Hugh Smyth is a former leader of the Progressive Unionist Party. He is a current member of Belfast City Council and, in 1994, served as Lord Mayor of the city. He is also the longest serving member of the council having represented the Upper Shankill areas since 1973.

Smyth first came to prominence in 1973 when he was elected as an independent Unionist to the Northern Ireland Assembly for West Belfast and was later elected to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Conventionin 1975 and the Northern Ireland Forum in 1996. As a member of the Shankill-based Independent Unionist Group, Smyth was one of the founders of the PUP in 1979 and remained leader until 2002 when he was replaced by David Ervine.