With regard to Irish Home Rule, Crawford was strongly partisan and backed armed resistance to it, being contemptuous of those who used political bluffing.

[1] His advocation of armed resistance was evident when he remarked, at a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, that his heart "rejoiced" when he heard talk of looking into using physical force.

[1] In 1910 the Ulster Unionist Council planned for the creation of an army to oppose Home Rule and approached Crawford to act as their agent in securing weapons and ammunition.

[3] Despite this, the meticulously planned and audacious Larne gun-running of April 1914, devised and carried out by Crawford, was successful in bringing in enough arms to equip the Ulster Volunteer Force.

He stated: "We in Ulster will not be able to hold our men in hand much longer...we will have the Protestants...killing a lot of the well known Sinn Fein leaders and hanging half a dozen priests.

"[13] In 1921 he attempted to create an organisation intended to be a "Detective Reserve", but called the "Ulster Brotherhood", the aims of which were to uphold the Protestant religion and political and religious freedom, as well as use all means to "destroy and wipe out the Sinn Féin conspiracy of murder, assassination and outrage".

[14][15] Upon news of his death he was described by the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Sir Basil Brooke, as being "as a fearless fighter in the historic fight to keep Ulster British".