Ivan Foster - DUP Politician

DUP Politician

Foster first became active in politics in 1964 when, along with fellow student minister William Beattie he campaigned in support of Ulster Protestant Action members seeking election to Belfast Corporation. He became a close associate of Paisley, who at the time utilised provocative street demonstrations targeting both Catholic areas and mainstream Protestant denominations, and was arrested and briefly held in Crumlin Road gaol in 1966 for public order offences.

Foster was a member of the DUP during the 1980s being a member of Omagh District Council. and winning a seat in the Northern Ireland assembly elections of 1982 for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency.

Foster was the commander of the Fermanagh battalion of Paisley's vigilante group, the Third Force, one of the few regions of the group that undertook any real activity. Along with George Graham and other DUP supporters Foster was arrested in summer 1985 after an unsuccessful attempt to smash police lines preventing a loyalist band from marching in Castlewellan, an event to which Foster had publicly threatened to bring Third Force members. He gained his greatest notoriety in 1986 when he was one of the three founders of Ulster Resistance.

Subsequently, Foster abandoned political life to concentrate on his work as a Free Presbyterian minister, having decided that the policies of the DUP were becoming too liberal. He formally announced his resignation from the party in 1989, adding particular criticism of the close relationship between Paisley and Ulster Unionist Party leader Jim Molyneaux, which Foster felt was compromising DUP independence.