23 Facts About Reg Empey

Reg Empey was the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party from 2005 to 2010 and served as chairman of the party from 2012 to 2019.

Reg Empey was born in West Belfast on 26 October 1947.

Reg Empey's family were retailers, and his uncle was Stormont Ulster Unionist MP Joseph Morgan.

Reg Empey attended Hillcrest Preparatory School, Belfast, and The Royal School, Armagh, before graduating with an economics degree from Queen's University of Belfast, where his contemporaries included the future MP Bernadette Devlin.

Reg Empey first entered politics in the late 1960s when he joined the Ulster Young Unionist Council.

When Vanguard split during the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention, Reg Empey joined the breakaway group which formed the United Ulster Unionist Party, serving as the party's deputy leader from 1977 until its dissolution in 1984.

Reg Empey was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1994 New Year Honours for services to local government.

Reg Empey was not selected by North Down party members, losing out to Alan McFarland.

Reg Empey was a senior Ulster Unionist negotiator for the Good Friday Agreement.

Reg Empey became increasingly prominent in the UUP and was often a member of its negotiating teams throughout the 1990s, the decade when he first became a party officer, and he became a key ally of David Trimble, who became leader of the party in 1995.

In 1996, Reg Empey was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum for East Belfast and in 1998 and 2003 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Reg Empey was the Minister for Employment and Learning from 2007 to 2010.

Reg Empey called for the Treasury to compensate investors in the collapsed mutual society Presbyterian Mutual which the Treasury rejected.

Reg Empey said the many shipments of arms sent to Ireland by Colonel Gaddafi for IRA use, were 'tantamount to an act of war against the United Kingdom.

Reg Empey stood in the contest to succeed him and on 24 June 2005, was elected.

On 15 May 2010, Reg Empey announced that he was to stand down in late 2010 as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.

On 19 November 2010, it was announced that Reg Empey would be created a life peer and will sit as a Conservative in the House of Lords.

Reg Empey voted in favour of triggering Article 50 in 2017, to begin the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.

On 30 October 2024, Reg Empey called on Democratic Unionist Party leader Gavin Robinson to apologise on behalf of his party after it emerged that the DUP had secret meetings with Sinn Fein in the mid-2000s whenever the DUP had a policy of not speaking to Sinn Fein.

Reg Empey is a member of the Orange Order, his lodge being Eldon LOL 7, in the Belfast district.

Lady Reg Empey was appointed MBE in the 2007 New Year Honours for services to the community in Northern Ireland and died in 2023.

Reg Empey first stood for election in the 1975 elections to the Constitutional Convention, standing as a candidate in Belfast East for the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party he received 4657 first preference votes he was elected.

Reg Empey stood in every election since 1998 to the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly until the 2011 election.