WILLIAM CRAIG, a one-time Stormont home affairs minister, Ulster Unionist and later the Vanguard founder, has died in a Belfast hospital. He was 86.
Mr Craig was seen by fellow unionists as a determined defender of the union and a key opponent of reforms initiated by Stormont prime minister Capt Terence O’Neill and his successors Maj James Chichester-Clark and Brian Faulkner.
First Minister Peter Robinson, who defeated Mr Craig in the 1979 Westminster election in East Belfast, said he was saddened to learn of his death and described him as “a committed unionist who cared deeply about Northern Ireland”.
Nationalists, however, regarded him as a notorious hardliner from the right wing of unionism.
Originally from Cookstown, Co Tyrone, Mr Craig represented an Antrim constituency and became minister for home affairs at Stormont under O’Neill.
He is known for his decision to restrict the civil rights march in Derry in October 1968 which was batoned by the RUC.
O’Neill later fired him.
Mr Craig subsequently opposed O’Neill’s reforms and addressed a series of large loyalist rallies having helped form the Ulster Loyalist Association in 1969.
He stood against the power-sharing deal secured at Sunningdale in 1973 and helped organise the loyalist workers’ strike which brought down the Executive in 1974.
Mr Craig formed Ulster Vanguard, a unionist umbrella organisation, which opposed direct rule and the prorogation of Stormont.
He won the Westminster seat for the East Belfast constituency in 1974.
However, his support of independence for Northern Ireland and his one-time consideration of a voluntary coalition involving the SDLP under the leadership of Gerry Fitt lost him support.
In a tight three-way election in 1979 involving the DUP and Alliance, Mr Craig lost his seat by just 64 votes to a young Peter Robinson.
He stood for the Assembly, which was boycotted by nationalists, in 1982 but did not win election despite rejoining the Ulster Unionists.
Following this rebuff, he retired from politics and had not been seen in public life since then.
David Burnside, a Vanguard press officer who later became a Westminster MP and member of the Assembly said Mr Craig was “one of the big figures in Ulster unionist politics”.
“He took a hardline in the defence of Stormont, he was a minister of home affairs at the beginning of the Troubles when riots and civil disturbances broke out in Derry,” he said.
“He formed Vanguard and wanted to create an umbrella movement for the unionist and loyalist population,” said Mr Burnside.