36 Facts About Jim Allister

James Hugh Allister was born on 2 April 1953 and is a Northern Irish unionist politician and barrister who has served as Member of Parliament for North Antrim since the 2024 general election.

Jim Allister founded the Traditional Unionist Voice in 2007 and has led the party since its formation.

Jim Allister had been a member of the Democratic Unionist Party since its foundation in 1971, and for which he successfully stood for election in the 2004 European Parliament election for Northern Ireland, succeeding Ian Paisley.

Jim Allister continued as a member of the European Parliament following his resignation from the DUP and establishment of the TUV, serving until 2009.

Jim Allister was born on 2 April 1953 in Listooder, near Crossgar in County Down, where he lived until he was nine, when his family moved to Craigantlet, just outside Newtownards.

Jim Allister was a pupil at Barnamaghery Primary School and later Dundonald Primary School when he moved house.

Jim Allister quit the Official Unionist Party to join the DUP at its founding in 1971.

In June 1972, as chairman of the Queen's University Democratic Unionist Party Association, Jim Allister wrote a letter published in the Belfast Telegraph arguing that Ian Paisley was closely aligned with Enoch Powell's "integrationist" stance that Northern Ireland should be closer to the rest of the United Kingdom, and that other unionist leaders were in favour of devolution.

In March 1973 Jim Allister was elected to the post of publicity officer for the Queen's DUP Association.

Jim Allister was involved in the 1974 Ulster Workers' Council strike against the Sunningdale Agreement, which had been signed the previous December.

Jim Allister served as a European Parliament assistant to Ian Paisley from 1980 to 1982.

In 1983 Jim Allister stated that if the DUP were faced with a choice between no devolved government and a power-sharing government with the SDLP or other nationalist representatives, his party would opt for not having a devolved government.

Jim Allister was the vice-chairman of Scrutiny Committee of Department of Finance and Personnel from October 1982 to June 1986.

In July 1984, Jim Allister gave a speech at the unveiling of a loyalist mural in a housing estate in the Ballykeel area of Ballymena, County Antrim.

Jim Allister was a member of the Joint Unionist Working Party, a body set up by his party and the Ulster Unionist Party to oversee the unionist campaign against the agreement.

Jim Allister was very vocal in his criticism of Royal Ulster Constabulary chief constable John Hermon; the Irish Independent wrote in June 1986 that most of the statements sent by Allister with regards to the chief constable could not be printed "having regards to the law of defamation and libel".

In May 1986 Jim Allister led thirteen other DUP politicians in an occupation of the telephone exchange at Parliament Buildings at Stormont and blocked calls from going through to government departments.

That same month Jim Allister organised a rally inaugurating the Ballymena battalion of a new loyalist paramilitary group, Ulster Resistance.

Inside Paisley donned a red Ulster Resistance beret on stage, daring the RUC to arrest him while Jim Allister pledged his "personal support" to Ulster Resistance.

When questioned by the press Jim Allister declined to say how many were in attendance but claimed that Ulster Resistance rallies seemed to grow in size every night, declaring:.

Jim Allister was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland as a barrister in 1976, specialising in criminal law.

Jim Allister said that McKeown would be appealing against the conviction.

Jim Allister returned to the DUP in 2004 and successfully ran as the party's candidate in Northern Ireland at the 2004 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom, topping the poll with 175,000 first-preference votes, 32 per cent of the total.

On 27 March 2007, Jim Allister resigned from the DUP because of the party's decision to enter into government with Sinn Fein.

In late 2007, there was speculation that Jim Allister might found a new unionist political party.

Jim Allister stood as a TUV candidate in the 2010 Westminster parliamentary election in the North Antrim constituency.

Jim Allister came second in the poll with 7,114 votes to the DUP's Ian Paisley Jr who polled 19,672 votes.

Jim Allister is a vocal critic of the A5 Western Transport Corridor, and claimed in 2010 a proposed bypass around Dungiven on the A6 would destroy some Protestant-owned farms and suggested this was planned "in order to avoid the more direct route which would disrupt the GAA facilities".

Jim Allister returned to the Northern Ireland Assembly at the 2011 election, being the last candidate elected in North Antrim.

Jim Allister said that he was inspired to introduce the bill by the example of Ann Travers who had protested against the appointment, in 2011, of former IRA member Mary McArdle to the position of special adviser by the then Sinn Fein minister for culture and arts.

Jim Allister holds conservative views on social policy, and is a supporter of the evangelical creationist lobby group, the Caleb Foundation.

At the 2016 Assembly election, Jim Allister topped the poll in North Antrim, and was elected on the seventh count.

In November 2016, Jim Allister opposed a motion pardoning gay men convicted for formerly illegal homosexual acts.

Jim Allister was re-elected in North Antrim on the fifth count, polling 8,282 first-preferences.

In September 2024, Jim Allister came seventh out of twenty successful MPs in the Private Members' Bill Ballot, entitling him to put forward a bill in the Commons.

Jim Allister is a member of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster.