In the
1981 Northern Ireland local elections, the party took three seats on
North Down Borough Council and two seats on
Ards Borough Council. Two of these were in North Down 'Area B', where sitting councillor
George Green, a former
Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party member who had been elected to the 1975
Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention, had joined the party. The other, Gladys McIntyre, was
Mayor of Ards in 1985–86. Kilfedder won a seat for the party in
North Down at the
1982 Northern Ireland Assembly election. Only a minority of his votes transferred to his running mate, George Green, who missed out on taking a second seat by just six votes. Kilfedder was subsequently elected Speaker of the Assembly. Kilfedder held his seat in the UK Parliament at the
1983 general election with a large majority, but fared less well when he stood in the
1984 European election, taking only 2.9% of the first preference votes. A unionist pact enabled Kilfedder to easily win a
by-election in 1986, when he joined the other unionist MPs in resigning in protest at the
Anglo-Irish Agreement. A challenge from
Bob McCartney, who stood as a "Real Unionist", led to a close election in
1987 that Kilfedder ultimately won. He then beat a
Conservative Party opponent in
1992. Thomas Jeffers to the
Democratic Unionist Party and Cecil Braniff setting up a short-lived independent DUP. No party member contested the
North Down by-election resulting from his death. ==Electoral performance==