Starting off as a Junior Unionist, Brian McConnell attended the Conservative Conference in Brighton as an Ulster Unionist delegate in 1947, at which he made a warmly received address on one of the resolutions before the conference of over 3,500.
In 1962 Lord Brookeborough appointed him Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Finance (Government Chief Whip), and after holding a junior office at the relatively new Ministry of Health, he became Minister of Home Affairs in 1964 in the government of Terence O'Neill.
In 1966 however Ian Paisley led a protest to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland for the installation of a new Moderator.
This was largely blamed on McConnell (who was in London at the time), and his period in elected office was effectively over.
Always a close associate of James Molyneaux, McConnell was raised to a life peerage as Baron McConnell, of Lisburn in the County of Antrim on 15 February 1995,[2] reportedly owing to the then Prime Minister's reliance on Ulster Unionist votes to maintain his minority government.