It was mid Saturday afternoon before the identity of the 108 MLAs who will take their seats in the Northern Irish Assembly were known. This is because the 6 members returned for each of the 18 constituencies were elected by STV (Single Transferable Vote) counted by hand not expensive machinery as some warned us about 5 years ago. However, some of the tales of this year’s election were already known before the end.
Firstly all 5 of the parties who made up the Executive at the start of the previous Assembly saw a drop in their first preference vote share. A drop of 2.9% for Sinn Féin, 2.2% for the SDLP, 0.8% for the DUP and 0.7% each for Alliance and UUP (who walked into opposition during the last mandate).
West Belfast caused excitement on both their first and final stage. On first preferences it was not Sinn Féin who topped the poll and took the first seat but Gerry Carroll of People Before Profit Alliance (PBPA). At the other end outgoing MLA Alex Atwood almost became the victim of a first unionist win since 2003 trailing the DUP’s Frank McCoubrey before the final redistribution pulled him 89 votes ahead.
Next door in South Belfast the Greens saw a doubling of their representation with Clare Bailey joining her North Down colleague Stephen Agnew in the big white house.
Elsewhere the Foyle constituency which centres on the city of Londonderry the battle of the two nationalist leaders saw Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness top the first preferences a mere 37 votes ahead of the SDLP’s Colum Eastwood, but both would have to wait until the seventh stage to be elected McGuinness having seen one of his party running mates eliminated and one elected in the previous rounds. The sixth seat in Foyle finally saw Eamonn McCann elected to Stormont, having first tried in 1969 and double the PBPA representation.
Traditional Unionist Voice had party leader Jim Allister staring over the shoulder of all his candidates, including his own, on their election posters. But his boast of becoming more than a one man band proved futile and only he was returned for North Antrim.
Of the other UK-wide parties the NI Labour Representative Council fielded 8 candidates without the approval of Labour’s National Executive but only secured 1,577 first preference votes, the NI Conservatives only managed 2,554. UKIP’s only MLA had been elected as an Ulster Unionist before defected, but stood down this time they secured 10,109 all three remain yet to elect an MLA to
In the end the DUP remained unchanged with 38 seats and remain the only party that by itself can lodge and win a petition of concern. The UUP on 16 and Alliance on 8 also remain unchanged that is before accounting for the 3 UUP defections to UKIP and NI21. But Sinn Féin are down one to 28 and SDLP down 2 to 12 losing them to People Before Profit and the Greens. However, while the numbers remain largely unchanged each of the four largest parties lost outgoing MLAs amongst the twelve who lost their seats at the ballot box.
* Stephen Glenn is the Chair of the Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats and a member of the Alliance Party. He has stood as a Westminster Candidate for the Lib Dems on three occasions.
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8 Comments
Good to see Sinn Fein having a poor result.
We should have a lot more emphasis on Northern Ireland in our party and national discourse.The dominance of Scotland and even Wales is , in recent years, noticeable, with regard to coverage , particularly in the media.Just because they have different groupings hardly matters .What happens there, with that history , matters .
The Alliance party of Northern Ireland should be far more involved with us and us with them .They are marvellous .David Ford their leader, a member of the UK Liberal Democrats , the best party leader in Northern Ireland , as was the outstanding John Alderdice , before him , and is now a valued member of our House of Lords party , and in Liberal International.
The fact that the Northern Ireland parties were not allowed in the General Election debates but the SNP and Plaid were , is an outrage that we must ensure does not happen again.
If the advancement of the able Ruth Davidson does anything , I hope it makes Nationalism more reticent .
A Fine Gael leader has been re-elected by the Dail, a first.
It would be good if we done more with the Alliance and them with us. I am also a member of the Alliance Party.
It was a pleasure to see that Eamonn McCann got elected in Derry for People Before Profit. McCann was the very first person I ever voted for (#1 in an STV election!) and it is great to see that 33 years later he remains true to a platform of non-sectarian socialism.
The healthy thing about these results is that PBP and Green gains represent an advance of non-sectarian politics (and politics not even based mainly on rejecting sectarianism, but on focussing on other issues) over the vote-the-way-your-fathers-shot parties.
“108 MLAs who will take their seats in the Northern Irish Assembly” Unfortunately not, the two largest parties continue to disagree. Those who voted for other candidates are denied representation, which, after all this time, is shameful.
Sammy Wilson MP (DUP) was on BBC2 Newsnight. He was the finance minister in previous administrations. He asserted that Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have different tax regimes now and will continue to do so after Brexit. He asserted that this does not prevent normal tax collection, quarterly.
There is the question of an “Irish veto”. Newsnight has said that that “for geeks” this is under QMV. Colleagues may remember that the late Margaret Thatcher used to believe that a requirement for unanimity meant that she could exercise a veto, so Qualified Majority Voting was introduced. The Republic of Ireland is one of the smaller countries, so it cannot exercise a veto on its own, but if they want to vote NO on something which is of high importance to them the other member states of the EU27 are with them.
Irish politics is reaching a perfect storm. There are long term differences between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. According to the Irish Independent on 27/11/2017 a general election just before Christmas is a serious possibility. A coalition of the two largest parties, however improbable in the minds of many Irish voters and commentators, could leave Sinn Fein as the largest opposition party, arguing against austerity. A general election could also mean inadequate time for legislation in the Dail for the pay of public sector workers, failing which they are threatening to strike on 1/1/2018.
It is widely accepted that the UK and the Republic of Ireland have a lot of trade, so that a hard Brexit would cause further austerity in the Republic. Sammy Wilson us deliveries of Guinness as an example, but we should also remember that Irish beef was of high quality when we had a problem with BSE. Northern Irish beef was also OK. Kerrygold butter and cheese is widely available, etc.
The goodwill engendered by the Queen’s reciprocated visit to Ireland could fade on trade / political / historical issues.
There was no definition of what “a hard border” means.
Our friends in the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland have put views on their website.
https://allianceparty.org/