Political Career
In addition to his advocacy for victims, Frazer has contested several elections in County Armagh. He has never been elected, and on most occasions lost his deposit. He ran as an Ulster Independence Movement candidate in the 1996 Forum Elections and the 1998 Assembly elections, and as an independent in the 2003 Assembly elections and a council by-election.
Frazer's best electoral showing was 1,427 votes, 25.9%, in a Newry and Mourne District Council by-election in August 2006 when Frazer had the backing of the local UUP and DUP. The total votes polled 5,587 (47.6% of the local electorate); it was a two candidate race for the Fews Area between Frazer and Sinn Féin candidate Turlough Murphy. The combined Unionist vote in 2005 in the area had been 2,446.
In the 2010 UK general election Frazer contested the Newry and Armagh Parliamentary constituency as an independent candidate. He received 656 votes (1.5%). The seat was retained by Sinn Féin's Conor Murphy who received 18,857 votes.
In the 2011 Assembly elections he was listed as a subscriber for the Traditional Unionist Voice candidate for the Newry and Armagh constituency, Barrie Halliday, who secured 830 (1.8%) of the first preference votes.
In November 2012 Frazer announced his intention to contest the 2013 Mid Ulster by-election necessitated by Martin McGuinness's decision to resign the parliamentary seat to concentrate on his Assembly role. Frazer was quoted in The Irish News in January 2013 as stating that he would not condemn any paramilitary gunman who killed McGuinness. He did not stand in the election, during which he was in prison on remand.
Despite his earlier advocacy of Ulster nationalism in 2013 Frazer declared himself in favour of re-establishing direct rule in Northern Ireland.
On 24 April 2013 Frazer and others, including former British National Party fundraiser Jim Dowson and David Nicholl, a former member of the paramilitary-linked Ulster Democratic Party, announced the launch of a new political party called the Protestant Coalition.
Read more about this topic: Willie Frazer
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“It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.”
—Auberon Waugh (b. 1939)