Beginning of Political Career
Smyth became Grand Master of the Orange Order in 1971, in what was seen at the time as a working-class "grass roots" revolt against the till then middle-class leadership of the Order. (He remained Grand Master until 1996). In the 1970s, he was a Deputy Leader of the Vanguard movement which had emerged as a faction within the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). However, when this faction split from the UUP to form the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party, Smyth chose to remain with the UUP. His name was linked in the Belfast Telegraph with the UUP candidacy for the Belfast North constituency in 1974. However, he did not stand there, and the following year, he was elected to the Constitutional Convention for Belfast South, polling more than double the electoral quota.
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