Basil Stanlake Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, KG, CBE, MC, TD, PC (Ire) (9 June 1888 – 18 August 1973), styled Sir Basil Brooke, 5th Baronet, between 1907 and 1952, and commonly referred to as Lord Brookeborough, was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician who served as the third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from May 1943, until March 1963.

Lord Brookeborough had previously held several ministerial positions in the Government of Northern Ireland, and has been described as "perhaps the last Unionist leader to command respect, loyalty and affection across the social and political spectrum".

[1] Equally well, he has also been described as one of the most hard-line anti-Catholic leaders of the UUP,[2] and his legacy involves founding his own paramilitary group, which fed in to the reactivation of the Ulster Volunteers (UVF).

He was a nephew of Field Marshal The 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff during World War II, who was only five years his senior.

His sister Sheelah married Sir Henry Mulholland, Speaker of the Stormont House of Commons and son of Lord Dunleath.

[7] In 1921 Captain Brooke was elected to the Senate of Northern Ireland, but he resigned the following year to become Commandant of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) in their fight against the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In the words of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "his thin, wiry frame, with the inevitable cigarette in hand, and clipped, anglicised accent were to be a feature of Stormont for the next forty years."

[7] He was thus known, from 1933 until his elevation to the peerage in 1952, as Captain The Right Honourable Sir Basil Brooke, 5th Baronet, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Military Cross, Privy Council of Northern Ireland, Member of Parliament.

As the Northern Ireland economy began to de-industrialise in the mid-1950s, leading to high unemployment amongst the Protestant working classes, Brookeborough faced increasing disenchantment amongst UUP backbenchers for what was regarded as his indifferent and ineffectual approach to mounting economic problems.

As this disenchantment grew, British civil servants and some members of the UUP combined to exert discreet and ultimately effective pressure on Brookeborough to resign to make way for Captain Terence O'Neill, who was Minister of Finance.

It may not be impossible, but is certainly not easy for any person to discard the political conceptions, the influence and impressions acquired from religious and education instruction by those whose aims are openly declared to be an all-Ireland republic.

"[7] While Graham Walker wrote "...Brookeborough's achievements over twenty years were substantial: the Unionist Party maintained essential unity, the anti-partitionist project was thwarted, and a potentially difficult post-war relationship with Britain under Labour was managed to the long-term benefit of Northern Ireland's full participation in the welfare state and new educational opportunities...",[15] increased educational opportunities for Catholics increased their self-confidence and expectations, which added momentum to the 1960s civil rights movement.

[7] In 1972 he appeared next to Bill Craig MP on the balcony of Parliament Buildings at Stormont, a diminutive figure beside the leader of the Ulster Vanguard who was rallying right-wing Unionists against the Government of Northern Ireland.

His remains were cremated at Roselawn Cemetery, East Belfast, three days later, and, in accordance with his wishes, his ashes were scattered on the demesne surrounding his beloved Colebrooke Park.

The obituary continued remarking that Brookeborough was "[a] staunch representative of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and an unyielding believer in the Protestant Ascendancy...The sectarian strife now tearing at the fabric of Northern Ireland's society is in part attributable to the immobility imposed in his long period of political leadership".

[7] [18] His only surviving son, Captain The Right Honourable John W. Brooke, Privy Council of Northern Ireland, MP, succeeded to the viscountcy.