Something that seems to have escaped mention on this blog is the change that could come about in Northern Ireland during the European Elections this year. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that does not use the D’Hondt method of PR. Instead it uses the Single Transferable Vote (STV) electoral system.
Northern Ireland has three seats in the European Parliament. The status quo is normally for Unionist to hold two seats, currently held by Jim Alister of Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) and Jim Nicholson of Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force, and nationalists to hold one seat, which is held by Bairbre de Brún of Sinn Fein (SF). Jim Alister was elected in 2004 as a member for the Democratic Unionist Party and left it in 2007 to found TUV.
The DUP want the seat back.
In 2004 the election results for Northern Ireland were as follows:
!st Preferences - Quota: 137,320.
Jim Allister (DUP) 175,761 (32.0%)
Bairbre De Brun (SF) 144,541 (26.3%)
Jim Nicholson (UUP) 91,164 (16.6%)
Martin Morgan (SDLP) 87,559 (15.9%)
John Gilliland (Independent) 36,270 (6.6%).
Eamonn McCann (SEA) 9,172 (1.6%).
Its easy to see that on the first count Jim Alister and Bairbre De Brun surpassed the quota and were elected. Jim Nicholson was elected on the thrid count.
The DUP are running a candidate to try and win back “their seat”. They are running Diane Dodds. This will mean there will be three Unionist candidates fighting for 48% of the vote, compared to two Nationalist candidates fighting for 42% of the vote (the number does not make 100% due to “other” parties).
Changes have occured also to Jim Nicholson party. Jim Nicholson was elected as an MEP for the Ulster Unionist Party, but now they have teamed up in an electoral alliance with the Conservative Party and are now known as the Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force. This will be the first election for them under this banner and I wonder how it will effect the vote for Jim Nicholson
Northern Ireland will be an interesting result to watch as some also see it as a referendum on the DUP-SF power sharing government in Stormont. Some claim that this split in the Unionist vote will allow the Nationalist to have two seats. Will that happen? Will the Conservative-UPP link up hurt or help? Interesting results will come from Northern Ireland on June 7th.
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[...] put a post up on think about it website about the European Elections in Northern Ireland. To me, Northern Ireland is going to be one of the [...]
Hi, Stephen!
Interesting to hear your take on the political situation in NI.
Politics is fascinating in any country, but especially so in a post-conflict society. Even the map you linked to from Wikipedia would be controversial in some parts of Northern Ireland. Not because of the statistics themselves, but because of the colour scheme!
Thanks Josef,
Those colours would not raise tension due to the fact they are the colours associated to the sides by themselves!
Definitely an interesting take on the election in NI - I must admit that I hadn’t really looked at the NI situation (despite living there myself - and doing a module on Irish politics [half of it is on NI]!).
I’m not sure how much the conservative link will matter to the UUP in this election, since the “all UK” aspect is less important when set in a European context - especially when the Tories have pulled out from the main centre-right alliance. Though perhaps the European context matters so little that none of this will matter. Arguably the UK context is pretty irrelevant, even for unionists, in the NI bubble - I’m not sure it will matter much politically unless there’s funding in it for the UUP to help with their campaigning. And perhaps this is illustrated by the fact that Allister could become an important factor - if a practically one man party can be considered a threat in intra-communal politics, then how effective or important can we say these “outside links” are?
The last time I checked the SDLP and Alliance websites on European policy, they were for NI joining the Euro! I’d say that’s from the last election - suggesting that now wouldn’t be very popular - since the border areas (more nationalist and likely to vote for the SDLP who are more likely to get a seat than the small Alliance party) have benefited a LOT from the fall in sterling.
There’s a lot to be interested in, I suppose - though my personal feelings are that since there are practically 2 electorates (nationalist parties and unionists parties competing in their own communities to be the dominant forces in their respective blocks), and the politics are not really about policy, it tends to make it less interesting for me. Sure, it’s interesting from the point of view of measuring the health of each party (and - say it quietly - how each block fairs against each other), but if you want a good debate instead of political bible-bashing, then it does turn you off…
Thanks Eurocentric! Glad you found it interesting as a Norn Iron Native
It has shown that alot of SDLP voters transfer to UUP before SF. Infact I knew of one MLA whos best vote came from a nationalist area. The link up with the Conservatives may effect these voters?
I don’t think the Alliance party will make much gains in the elections, but it will be interesting to see how it pans out.
Great diary, Stephan! It;s difficult to speculate without local experience or hard opinion poll data, but my guess is that there will be depressingly little change from the old tribal politics. When will a truly popular “post conflict, post tribal” movement arise?
Thanks Frank,
Who knows, maybe in a few years time it may be the likes of the Alliance Party and Greens who could be setting the agenda. I look forward to that day!
“Those colours would not raise tension due to the fact they are the colours associated to the sides by themselves!”
Hehe - but not so! I’m speaking from experience.
A couple of years back I was in Derry training as a facilitative mediator, and we were warned there could be comments over something as trivial as the the colour of board markers. If you write only in orange and green, people have been known to comment. If you write only in blue and red, likewise.
What is the solution? Use whatever colour board markers you want, and then deal with any complaints as they come up by reminding people (as you pointed out) how the colours are shared between communities.
SDLP voters do transfer to UUP, and it could be affected by the UUP’s more explicit conservative links - however SDLP voters transfer more to Alliance before they transfer to the UUP, whereas the UUP voters are more likely to list the SDLP in preference before Alliance. SDLP voters are still somewhat reticent about supporting the UUP, so conservative links may further deter them - but then again the more important factor may be how extreme the DUP will be in their rhetoric (and they’ll probably play up their hardline-ism to counter Allister…).
(Sorry, I recently had a lecture on NI voting trends).
It’s all tribal and based on strategic communal thinking - “if I support the moderates on the other side…”. So it’s hard to know how strengthening the conservative links of one party will affect the preferences of the other party-supporting voters.
Sadly, whoever characterized elections in NI as a popularized census is still close to the mark.
So I agree with you, Frank - pan-NI political movements are probably years (decades?) away: the best that can be hoped for at a local level is for the UUP and SDLP to pull out of the executive and become an alternative government-in-waiting (perhaps with the Alliance) to give the voters some choice at Assembly elections. That would encourage strategic coalition building and more cross-communal voting.
Great stuff - cheers, Eurocentric!
Does anyone know what the turn-out is likely to be? I think it’s expected to be high in the Republic and low in Britain, and I wonder how that will affect N.Ireland? Somewhere between the two?
I don’t really know about figures, but turnout tends to be high in NI anyway because of the “we have to get out to show our numbers” aspect of elections here. That said, turnout has declined a bit since the Assembly has got running and we’ve returned to “normal” politics. In that way, it’s a very different voting culture to that in Britain and the Republic.
Wikipedia says that for the first Assembly elections (’98), turnout was 69.88%, but for the last one (’07) it was 62.31%. I don’t know the percentages for European elections yet. The one percentage I can find on Wikipedia for european elections is for 2004 - 51.7%.
Cheers, Eurocentric!
Very interesting follow-up to this post here: http://snipurl.com/g3u2k