Hugh Smyth, who has died aged 75, was a former Progressive Unionist Party leader and a one-time lord mayor of Belfast. Titles aside, he was perhaps better known in his native Shankill area as a working class political fighter in the mould of so many others on both sides of the political and social divide.
While he had obvious differences with politicians of the stripe of SDLP founders Paddy Devlin and Gerry Fitt, he shared much of their left-wing politics and had impeccable street credentials. He was first elected to Belfast City Hall in a byelection for the Shankill area in 1972. In the following year, following a reform of local government which extended suffrage in council elections, he was re-elected.
In all Smyth served 41 years on the council, becoming an alderman in 1978 and lord mayor in 1994. He made history that year by meeting his opposite number in Dublin. He was honoured by Queen Elizabeth with an OBE in the New Year’s honours list of 1996.
For all the honours, he was still better known by his first name – or one of its many Belfast variants: Hughie, Shuggie, even, on occasion, Q. Both admirers and opponents testify to his hard constituency work and commitment to those who elected him in 1973 and at every subsequent council poll. Labour instincts Had he been born in any other industrial city in any other part of Ireland or Britain, he would no doubt have been in whatever version of the labour movement existed there. But coming from a family of nine in the Shankill, Hugh Smyth was also a unionist – though not of the “big house” variety. He was elected at various times as an Independent Unionist – a designation meant to show distance from the Ulster Unionists and the DUP – or under the badge of a number of small and shortlived loyalist groups.
He had links with the UVF and acted at times as a spokesman. But his interests were clearly more political and he helped form a loose association of like-minded unionists which evolved over time into the Progressive Unionist Party.
He was close to, and influenced by, Gusty Spence and the search for a constitutional path for loyalist communities which he felt were not represented by mainstream unionism. Along with Spence he was instrumental in appealing to David Ervine to join the PUP and replace him as leader in 2002.
Hugh Smyth was a notable figure in negotiations following the loyalist ceasefire which was called six weeks after the Provisional IRA announced its cessation in 1994.
He was a member of various delegations to meet senior British government figures in an effort to build on the ceasefire’s opportunities and, following the IRA bombing of Canary Wharf in London in February 1996, to prevent its total collapse.
Billy Hutchinson, the current PUP leader, has described Hugh Smyth as "a giant of working class loyalism". "Hugh was fundamental to bringing the loyalist community to the negotiating table and played a central role in strengthening Northern Ireland's position with the United Kingdom."
Another former Progressive Unionist leader, Dawn Purvis, said: "Shughie, as he was affectionately known, or Shuggie, as he was known by David Ervine, had been in politics for over 35 years and was quite a character." Wit and guile True to Belfast working class tradition, his wit and guile were never in doubt. The Belfast Telegraph's Liam Clarke tells a story of a chat between Smyth and Tony Blair shortly before the birth of the former prime minister's son, when he asked what the expected child's name would be.
Blair told him he would call his son Leo, after his own father. At that point, Clarke says, Smyth left the room, picked up a phone and placed a bet with his bookies at 25-1.
Hugh Smyth is survived by his wife, Ellen.