Robert McCartney (politician)
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| Robert McCartney QC | |
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UKUP Leader
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| Born | April 24, 1936 Belfast, Northern Ireland |
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| Political party | UK Unionist Party |
Robert Law McCartney QC (born 24 April 1936) often known as Bob, is a Northern Ireland Barrister, top Unionist politician, and leader of the UK Unionist Party, and was previously the only UKUP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
He was initially a member of the Ulster Unionist Party but was expelled from the party in June 1987 when he refused to withdraw from the general election of that year and instead stood against another 'Real Unionist' candidate but failed to win a seat.
In the 1995 by-election in North Down he was successfully elected as a "UK Unionist" and he subsequently established his party further in preparation for elections to the Northern Ireland peace talks.
He retained his seat in the 1997 election, but lost it in the 2001 election to the UUP candidate Sylvia Hermon. In 1999 McCartney ran for the party in elections to the European Parliament, winning 2.9% of the first preference vote.
He is committed to a policy of integration for Northern Ireland, whereby all political and administrative forms of devolution would be wound up, there would be no Northern Ireland wide legislative and administrative assembly and the province would be a fully-integrated part of the United Kingdom. This proposal, once popular in some sections of Unionism, has increasingly receded and with the recent introduction of devolution to Scotland and Wales, as well as proposals for English regional assemblies such a proposal seems increasingly unviable.
McCartney also strongly opposes the St Andrews Agreement. He stood in 6 different constituencies in the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly elections on an anti-agreement ticket but was elected to none of them.[1] He claims to have retired from politics following the loss of his assembly seat in North Down in the 2007 Assembly Election to Brian Wilson of the Green Party.
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| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by James Kilfedder |
Member of Parliament for North Down 1995–2001 |
Succeeded by Sylvia Hermon |
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| Preceded by (newly created position) |
Leader of the United Kingdom Unionist Party 1995 – present |
Incumbent |
