Michael McGimpsey (born 1 July 1948) is a former Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician who was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast South from 1998 to 2016. McGimpsey was born in Donaghadee, County Down and was educated in Regent House Grammar School and Trinity College, Dublin. He is a businessman aside from politics involved in property development, hotels and the hospitality sector. In the mid-1980s he came to prominence alongside his brother Christopher when they challenged the Anglo-Irish Agreement by bringing a suit against the Irish government in the High Court of the Republic of Ireland, arguing that the Agreement was invalid because it contradicted Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland (this argument was unusual coming from Unionists because of the traditional Unionist opposition to these two articles.) The case failed in the High Court, and again on appeal to the Supreme Court. McGimpsey's UUP office is located on Sandy Row in south Belfast. Early political career In 1993 he was first elected to Belfast City Council. For the 1996 Northern Ireland Forum election McGimpsey was third on the UUP list. As a result, he was not involved in the negotiations for the Belfast Agreement. In 1998 McGimpsey was the first member to be elected for South Belfast on the 5th count. to the Northern Ireland Assembly. He was appointed to serve as Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure in the Northern Ireland Executive from 1999 until the collapse of the Executive in 2002. One of his achievements was the digitising of the Ulster Covenant by the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland. Westminster elections 2001 In the run-up to the 2001 UK general election McGimpsey challenged sitting MP Martin Smyth for the Ulster Unionist nomination for Belfast South and gained 43% of the valid poll. In light of anti-agreement Smyth's selection the then anti-agreement Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) did not stand a candidate, but the pro-agreement Progressive Unionist Party was prompted to put one up. McGimpsey, however endorsed Smyth. 2005 In 2005 the sitting UUP MP Martin Smyth retired and McGimpsey was selected as the official UUP candidate for the south Belfast constituency in the 2005 general election following a close selection campaign against an unknown figure, Christopher Montgomery. The Democratic Unionist Party, for the first time in over twenty years, stood a candidate in the form of former policeman Jimmy Spratt.