About Reg Empey
Reginald Norman Morgan Empey, Baron Empey, (born 26 October 1947), best known as Reg Empey, is a Northern Irish politician who served as the acting First Minister of Northern Ireland in 2001. He was the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 2005 to 2010 and served as chairman of the party from 2012 to 2019. Empey was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for East Belfast from 1998 to 2011 and has been a life peer in the House of Lords since 2011. == Early life and career == Reg Empey was born in West Belfast on 26 October 1947. His family were retailers, and his uncle was Stormont Ulster Unionist MP Joseph Morgan; another uncle was Ben Horan, who was a Belfast councillor for over 20 years. 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. After that he built up a business career, specifically in retailing. His Royal Avenue store, located opposite the British Army barracks, was destroyed in an explosion, and looted. He first entered politics in the late 1960s when he joined the Ulster Young Unionist Council. Along with other hardline unionists, he left in protest at reforms and became an early member of the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party, serving as the party chairman in 1975 and being elected to the Constitutional Convention in the same year.
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