[1] The party's roots were firmly in the Protestant community of Northern Ireland, but its initial political stance was not the traditional unionist one favoured by that section of society.

Its first foray into electoral politics was deeply disappointing,[3] with the party leader John McMichael polling only 576 votes (1.3%) in the 1982 Belfast South by-election.

It was not until the 1989 local elections that the party made its electoral breakthrough, when Ken Kerr won a seat on Derry City Council, in the Waterside area.

This was due in part to the UDP's increased public profile, after it played a role in the loyalist ceasefire of 1994 and contested the 1996 election to the Northern Ireland Forum.

In January 1998 the UDP voluntarily withdrew from the peace talks, before it could be expelled in response to a number of murders committed by the Ulster Freedom Fighters, a cover name for the UDA.