Brian Faulkner - Chief Executive

Chief Executive

In June 1973, elections were held to a new devolved parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly. The elections split the Ulster Unionist Party. Faulkner became Chief Executive in a power-sharing executive with the SDLP and the middle-of-the-road Alliance Party, a political alliance cemented at the Sunningdale Conference that year. However the prominence in the Sunningdale Agreement of the cross-border Council of Ireland suggested that Faulkner had strayed just too far ahead of his party. A section of the party had previously broken away to form the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party which contested the elections in opposition to the UUP.

The power-sharing Executive which he led lasted only six months and was brought down by a loyalist Ulster Workers Council Strike in May 1974. Loyalist paramilitary organisations were prominent in intimidating utility workers and blockading roads. The strike had the tacit support of many Unionists. In 1974 Faulkner lost the leadership of the Ulster Unionists to anti-Sunningdale elements led by Harry West. He subsequently resigned from the Ulster Unionist Party and formed his own Unionist Party of Northern Ireland (UPNI).

Faulkner's party fared badly in the Convention elections of 1975 winning only five out of the 78 seats contested. Whereas Faulkner had topped the poll in South Down in 1973 with over 16,000 votes he polled just 6035 votes in 1975 and finished seventh, winning the final seat. In 1976 Faulkner announced that he was quitting active politics. He was elevated to the Lords in the New Year's Honours list of 1977, taking the title Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick, in County Down.