Brian Wilson (Northern Ireland politician)

Brian Wilson MLA (born 1943) is a Green Party politician in Northern Ireland. He is the first member of his party to be elected as member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Born in Bangor, County Down, Wilson has campaigned for more than 30-years against discrimination and bigotry, promoting tolerance and an environmentally friendly Northern Ireland. He has been involved in Northern Ireland politics throughout his adult life.

He is a member of the Regional Development Committee and Privileges Committee in the Northern Ireland Assembly. He is also a member of the Eastern Health Board and Health council, chairman of North Down Hospitals Committee, member of Rathmore Board of Governors, Board of St. Columbanus College, member of South Eastern Education and Library Board, former member of North Down District Policing Partnership and former governor of North Down and Ards Institute. Wilson is also a member of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

He was elected mayor of North Down Borough Council in 1993/1994.

His journey to the Green Party first began when he became a member of the Northern Ireland Labour Party campaigning for social reform from where he joined the Alliance Party in 1975.

In 1997 Wilson left the Alliance Party and was elected as an independent councillor for Bangor West in 2001, topping the poll for the forth successive election with 1871 votes (1.6 quotas). In 2003 he again stood as an independent candidate for the Assembly increasing his share of the poll by 10% and finishing tenth out of 19 candidates on the first count.

In 2004 he joined the Green Party to highlight his increasing concern about environmental issues. The following year he became the first Green Party representative to be elected to public office in Northern Ireland when he again topped the poll in Bangor West.

Then in 2007 he won first Green Party's first seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly, winning a seat in the North Down constituency on the 10th count, after increasing the Green vote from 730 to 2,839 first preferences

He attended Trinity Primary School and Bangor Grammar School. A former civil servant in the Department of Education, he took studied part-time at the Open University and in 1973 left the civil service to do a fulltime masters degree in Politics at the University of Strathclyde. On his return to Northern Ireland he lectured at Omagh Technical College in 1979 from where he transferred to the College of Business Studies (now BIFHE) as a lecturer in government and economics. He was a senior lecturer at BIFHE for 24- years. In 1979 he married Anne whom he met when studying in Scotland. They have two children Scott (born 1980) and Allan (born 1982) and two step children Roy and Caroline.