The electoral defeat of Robert McCartney earlier this month leaves MEP Jim Allister QC as the most prominent standard-bearer of dissident unionism in Northern Ireland.
Joining the Democratic Unionist Party as a founder member in 1971, he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont in 1982 where he became the party's chief whip.
He dropped out of the party during the 1987 Westminster poll, reportedly because a pan-unionist voting pact gave a clear run to the sitting MP in East Antrim, Roy Beggs of the rival Official Unionist Party, despite the fact that Allister had almost unseated Beggs in the previous general election.
Becoming active again in recent years, he was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 in succession to Dr Paisley.
He contributes actively to parliamentary debates from a generally Eurosceptic viewpoint and condemned the proposed EU constitutional treaty as "tawdry".
A native of Crossgar, Co Down, who now lives near Ballymena, Co Antrim, Allister will be 54 on April 2nd. A successful barrister, he "took silk" as a queen's counsel in 2001.