The party began in 1975 as the Ulster Dominion Group, when Professor Kennedy Lindsay broke from the United Ulster Unionist movement (which would later emerge as the United Ulster Unionist Party), itself a breakaway from the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party to form a new group that would fully support the idea of Dominion status for Northern Ireland.
The UDG wanted effective independence for the Province, although the British monarch would continue as Head of state and would be represented by a Governor-General.
[1] The UDG changed its name to the British Ulster Dominion Party in 1977 when it decided to take a more formalised role in Northern Irish politics.
[1] The party put up 4 candidates in Antrim town,[2] Larne Town[3] and Ballyclare in the local elections of that same year but found that it had very little support with none of the candidates being able to achieve even 5% of the vote.
[4] Thereafter it was obvious that it could not mount a serious challenge to mainstream Unionism, despite the relatively high circulation of its tabloid newspaper The Ulsterman.