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Sir James Alexander Kilfedder (16 July 1928 – 20 March 1995), usually known as Sir Jim Kilfedder, was a Northern Ireland unionist politician. He was the last unionist to represent Belfast West in the House of Commons.
Kilfedder was elected for North Down in the 1973 Assembly election, signing Brian Faulkner's pledge to support the White Paper which eventually established the Sunningdale Agreement but becoming an anti-White Paper Unionist after the election. In 1975 he stood for the same constituency in the Constitutional Convention election, polling over three quotas as a UUP member of the United Ulster Unionist Coalition (UUUC) although he refused to sign the UUUC's pledge of conduct.
He left the UUP in 1977 in opposition to the party's policies tending to integrationism, preferring to advocate the restoration of the Stormont administration. For a time he sat as an "Independent Ulster Unionist". He contested the 1979 European Parliament Election under that label, finishing fourth in the count for the three seats, having overtaken the UUP leader Harry West on transfers.
In 1980, he formed the Ulster Popular Unionist Party (UPUP) and was re-elected under that label in all subsequent elections. He again topped the poll in the 1982 Assembly election and was elected as Speaker of the AssemblyRobert Waller, Almanac of British Politics, 3rd edition (to 1986). He generally took the Conservative whip at Westminster.Waller and Criddle, Almanac of British Politics, 6th edition Whilst Speaker, he was paid more than the Prime Minister.
He died unmarried, survived by two sisters. Kilfedder was described as
"a phenomenon or perhaps a left-over from a remote era of Northern Irish politics when Ulster was represented by such figures as Lord Robert Grosvenor, Major Robin Chichester-Clark, Stratton Mills, and Rafton Pounder."
Kilfedder was described by Democratic Unionist Party MLA Peter Weir as "the best MP North Down ever had."
The UPUP did not outlive him, and the by-election for his Commons seat was won by Robert McCartney, standing for the UK Unionist Party. McCartney had fought the seat in the 1987 general election as a "Real Unionist" with the backing of the Campaign for Equal Citizenship. At the 1987 election count, in his victory speech, Kilfedder had "attacked his rival's supporters as 'a rag tag collection of people who shame the name of civil rights.' He said they included communists, Protestant paramilitaries and Gay Rights supporters and he promised to expose more in future." Co. Down Spectator, 18 June 1987 McCartney lost North Down in 2001 to Sylvia Hermon of the UUP.
Kilfedder's personal and political papers (including constituency affairs) are held at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, reference D4127.
Kilfedder is buried in Roselawn Cemetery in East Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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