Sinn Féin joy after Six County election boost

The outcome of the Westminster election in the north of Ireland has confirmed the degree to which the political map has changed since the Good Friday Agreement was signed.

The overall nationalist vote was again up strongly, with Sinn Féin emerging as the largest party in the North, and a clear distance ahead of the next largest, the Democratic Unionist Party.

Sinn Féin held all its seven Westminster seats and increased its vote share by more than four points to 27%, despite a nationalist turnout which was up to 20% lower in some areas as a result of the election taking place during the Protestant marching season.

The party has now completed a ‘hat-trick’ - coming out top in the last Stormont, local government and Westminster elections.

Across the North, Sinn Féin added almost 30,000 votes to its 2019 tally across all constituencies. There were numerous standout performances, the best being in East Derry, where despite not winning the seat Kathleen McGurk came within just 179 votes of unseating DUP veteran Gregory Campbell, infamous for his bigoted attitude to the Irish language.

Ms McGurk said the close contest was not a shock for the people of East Derry, where constituency changes has helped to shift the balance of power.

She said: “In East Derry we set out to make history, and I think we have done that, even though we didn’t get it over the line this time, we have laid the foundation blocks for that.

“We set out to deliver positive change and strong leadership and I think we have done that in spade loads.”

Aontu’s Gemma Brolly polled over a thousand votes here, the first time that a damaging split over Sinn Féin’s hardline stance on abortion in 2018, which led to the party’s formation, has impacted the electoral map.

But the SDLP became the target for Sinn Féin anger as its candidate, Cara Hunter, took 5,260 votes. RTÉ commentator Joe Brolly raged at the SDLP for running a candidate, claiming it would compete against Sinn Féin “if it meant the leader of the Ku Klux Klan won the seat”.

But there was good news for Sinn Féin across the North. In Upper Bann, Catherine Nelson came second to the DUP with 14,236 votes, putting down a marker for elections to come.

New candidate Pat Cullen (pictured, centre), who replaced incumbent Michelle Gildernew, has vanquished the image of Fermanagh-South Tyrone as Westminster’s most marginal seat, winning by thousands of votes.

In South Down, Chris Hazzard boosted his winning majority in a seat that was once an SDLP stronghold.

There were also expected successes for newcomers Dáire Hughes in Newry & Armagh and Cathal Mallaghan in Mid-Ulster, where the party’s dominance was reinforced with a 7% increase as it was in West Tyrone, safely held by Órfhlaith Begley with an impressive 11% increase.

In West Belfast, the Maskey dynasty in the form of Paul Maskey continued untroubled, helped by an overall rise in the nationalist vote. Only in North Belfast, an important gain five years ago, was there a noticeable drop in Sinn Féin support, but held with an increased majority by John Finucane due to the DUP collapse.

The results have come as a relief to the party following disappointing election results in the local and European elections in the 26 Counties last month.

Former SF candidate Chris Donnelly said the scale of the party’s success was an indication of support for Sinn Féin’s policies north of the border.

“The party hit every conceivable target in this election – they comfortably won all seven seats, established a new marginal in East Derry and narrowed the gap in Foyle, both of which will be key priorities next time,” he said.

He said the strength of Thursday’s performance would be “very welcome news for the leadership and activists” following the disappointment of last month’s southern elections.

“There will be a sense that the train is back on the track now and the focus will very much be on recapturing lost support ahead of the Dáil elections so that the party may yet be in the mix to form part of the next coalition government.”

Speaking from Belfast, party leader Mary Lou McDonald thanked those who voted for Sinn Féin candidates “electing hard-working public representatives, and returning Sinn Féin as the largest party with twenty-seven percent share of the vote and seven seats.

“We will provide strong and positive leadership and work for all across the North to improve public services, people’s lives and livelihoods.”

The results came despite a tangible effort to deter nationalist voters in east Belfast with paramilitary flags for the murderous ‘Protestant Action Force’ erected outside a polling station just hours before the polls opened.

The Protestant Action Force was a cover name used by loyalists, mainly the UVF, to avoid directly claiming responsibility for scores of sectarian killings during the conflict.

The intimidation helped DUP leader Gavin Robinson cling to his seat against the threat from Alliance leader Naomi Long.

Otherwise, the DUP suffered a disastrous election, dropping from eight seats to five and losing two key heartlands – North Antrim and Lagan Valley. Ian Paisley Jr’s defeat in North Antrim symbolised the historic reversal.

Reflecting on his loss, Mr Paisley said: “The tides of life ebb and flow as we all know.

“This is certainly not the script I would have written for tonight, as most of you would accept.

“Life is made up of many chapters and I embrace the next chapter as happily as I embraced the previous chapters.”

Mr Paisley blew a kiss over his shoulder as he left the count.

Jonathan Buckley, running in Lagan Valley place of shamed former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson, who is currently facing 18 sex offences, blamed his defeat on divisions within unionism and predicted the DUP would retake the seat.

He said: “For Lagan Valley, there is brighter days ahead, I can assure you for unionism. But it must deal with its internal divisions.

“We must spend less time throwing rocks at each other and looking to the broad picture of unionism to make Northern Ireland work.”

Those MPs who did retain their seats did so with significantly reduced majorities. Gregory Campbell held on by his fingernails in East Derry, while Sammy Wilson’s cushion of near 7,000 in East Antrim votes dropped to just over 1,300.

Wilson told other unionist parties they “ought to be ashamed”.

In his acceptance speech, Mr Wilson said: “There are seats which will be occupied in Westminster for the next five years by someone who is opposed to many of the unionist ideals which I adhere to. They didn’t need to be lost. They could have been won had the unionist vote not been split.

“My message to you is, ‘You ought to be ashamed; you knew what you were doing. In fact, in some cases, you made it quite clear that your chief objective was to destroy another unionist party rather than to ensure that the Union was secured’.

“I hope that in the days to come unionists will learn that, if we want to have the kind of representation at Westminster that we deserve, then we must act together – not act against each other.”

Alliance scored a significant victory in Lagan Valley for Sorcha Eastwood, the highlight of a mixed night for the party amid an overall drop in its vote share, but deputy leader Stephen Farry in North Down fell to a swing to independent unionist Alex Easton.

Easton, who quit the DUP in 2021, had accused the party of lacking “respect, discipline or decency”.

The results were pretty dismal for the North’s second largest nationalist party, with the SDLP’s overall vote share slipping by almost four percentage points to 11.1%, with the party’s vote increasingly concentrated into two constituencies.

Party leader Colum Eastwood held his seat in Foyle with a sharply reduced majority of just over 4,000 votes from 17,000 against Sinn Féin’s candidate, former Derry and Strabane Mayor Sandra Duffy, in what was another strong result for a relentless Sinn Féin election machine. In south Belfast, Claire Hanna safely retained her seat, undoubtedly helped by Sinn Féin’s decision not to stand there.

The Ulster Unionist Party fared reasonably well and will be delighted that former leader Robin Swann’s bid to unseat Paul Girvan in South Antrim has given it back a Westminster presence.

But there was humiliation for Colonel Tim Collins, a retired British Army officer whose military braggadocio crashed and burned in North Down, where he came a distant third.

At the election count, the London-based former SAS man attempted to explain a poorly-received campaign point over the cost of insuring his Rolls Royce car, said: “It’s Northern Ireland, they don’t understand these things.”

The performance of the TUV’s Jim Allister, breaking more than 50 years of Paisley dynasty in North Antrim was undoubtedly the highlight for the smaller parties. The party’s overall vote share grew by 6.2% though elsewhere.

Mr Allister said: “There is no escaping the fact that there has been a political earthquake in North Antrim of seismic proportions.

“Today, we mark an occasion when, after 54 years of DUP and Ian Paisley dynasty, North Antrim has taken an alternative course.”

The Greens will be encouraged by a modest 0.9 percentage point increase in vote share, while People Before Profit saw its vote increase, thanks to a doubling of Shaun Harkin’s vote in Foyle.

Aontú had a mixed result but largely consolidated its vote share at 1%, while the Tories, despite the efforts of outgoing Direct Ruler Chris Heaton-Harris, saw its vote collapse to a negligible 0.1%.

The following is a constituency-by-constituency breakdown of the results in the north of Ireland:

Belfast East

DUP (Gavin Robinson) 19,894 (46.6%, -1.3)
Alliance (Naomi Long) 17,218 (40.3%, -1.8)
TUV (John Ross) 1,918 (4.5%, +4.5)
UUP (Ryan Warren) 1,818 (4.3%, -1.4)
Green (Brian Smyth) 1,077 (2.5%, +2.5)
SDLP (Séamas de Faoite) 619 (1.4%, -2.9)
Independent (Ryan North) 162 (0.4%, +0.4)

Belfast North

Sinn Féin (John Finucane) 17,674 (43.7%, -4.4)
DUP (Phillip Brett) 12,062 (29.8%, -10.5)
Alliance (Nuala McAllister) 4,274 (10.6%, 0.0)
TUV (David Clarke) 2,877 (7.1%, +7.1)
SDLP (Carl Whyte) 1,413 (3.5%, +3.0)
Green (Mal O’Hara) 1,206 (3.0%, +3.0)
PBP (Fiona Ferguson) 946 (2.3%, +2.2)

Belfast South and Mid Down

SDLP (Claire Hanna) 21,345 (49.1%, -4.2)
Alliance (Kate Nicholl) 8,839 (20.3%, +4.9)
DUP (Tracy Kelly) 6,859 (15.8%, -9.6)
UUP (Michael Henderson) 2,653 (6.1%, +2.5)
TUV (Dan Boucher) 2,218 (5.1%, +5.1)
Green (Áine Groogan) 1,577 (3.6%, +3.4)

Belfast West

Sinn Féin (Paul Maskey) 21,009 (52.9%, +4.4)
PBP (Gerry Carroll) 5,048 (12.7%, -1.4)
SDLP (Paul Doherty) 4,318 (10.9%, +3.5)
DUP (Frank McCoubrey) 4,304 (10.8%, -7.4)
TUV (Ann McClure) 2,010 (5.1%, +5.1)
Alliance (Eóin Millar) 1,077 (2.7%, -4.4)
Aontú (Gerard Herdman) 904 (2.3%, -1.4)
UUP (Ben Sharkey) 461 (1.2%, +0.3)
Green (Ash Jones) 451 (1.1%, +1.1)
Independent (Tony Mallon) 161 (0.4%, +0.4)

East Antrim

DUP (Sammy Wilson) 11,462 (28.9%, -13.0)
Alliance (Danny Donnelly) 10,156 (25.6%, -0.4)
UUP (John Stewart) 9,476 (23.9%, +7.3)
TUV (Matthew Warwick) 4,135 (10.4%, +10.4)
Sinn Féin (Oliver McMullan) 2,986 (7.5%, -0.3)
SDLP (Margaret Anne McKillop) 892 (2.2%, -1.4)
Green (Mark Bailey) 568 (1.4%, -0.3)

East Derry

DUP (Gregory Campbell) 11,506 (27.9%, -12.1)
Sinn Féin (Kathleen McGurk) 11,327 (27.4%, +12.0)
SDLP (Cara Hunter) 5,260 (12.7%, -3.7)
TUV (Allister Kyle) 4,363 (10.6%, +10.6)
Alliance (Richard Stewart) 3,734 (9.0%, -5.5)
UUP (Glen Miller) 3,412 (8.3%, -0.8)
Aontú (Gemma Brolly) 1,043 (2.5%, -1.8)
Green (Jen McCahon) 445 (1.1%, +1.1)
Conservative (Claire Scull) 187 (0.5%, +0.5)

Fermanagh and South Tyrone

Sinn Féin (Pat Cullen) 24,844 (48.6%, +6.1)
UUP (Diana Armstrong) 20,273 (39.7%, -1.9)
Alliance (Eddie Roofe) 2,420 (4.7%, -0.7)
SDLP (Paul Blake) 2,386 (4.7%, -2.5)
CCLA (Gerry Cullen) 624 (1.2%, +1.2)
Aontú (Carl Duffy) 529 (1.0%, +0.9)

Foyle

SDLP (Colum Eastwood) 15,647 (40.8%, -17.4)
Sinn Féin (Sandra Duffy) 11,481 (29.9%, +8.7)
DUP (Gary Middleton) 3,915 (10.2%, +1.5)
PBP (Shaun Harkin) 2,444 (6.4%, +3.6)
Independent (Anne McCloskey) 1,519 (4.0%, +4.0)
UUP (Janice Montgomery) 1,422 (3.7%, +1.7)
Alliance (Rachael Ferguson) 1,268 (3.3%, +0.6)
Aontú (John Boyle) 662 (1.7%, -2.7)

Lagan Valley

Alliance (Sorcha Eastwood) 18,618 (37.9%, +10.8)
DUP (Jonathan Buckley) 15,659 (31.9%, -11.5)
UUP (Robbie Butler) 11,157 (22.7%, +4.2)
TUV (Lorna Smyth) 2,186 (4.5%, +4.5)
SDLP (Simon Lee) 1,028 (2.1%, -2.0)
Green (Patricia Denvir) 433 (0.9%, +0.9)

Mid Ulster

Sinn Féin (Cathal Mallaghan) 24,085 (53.0%, +7.3)
DUP (Keith Buchanan) 9,162 (20.2%, -3.5)
SDLP (Denise Johnston) 3,722 (8.2%, -5.7)
TUV (Glenn Moore) 2,978 (6.6%, +6.6)
UUP (Jay Basra) 2,269 (5.0%, -2.4)
Alliance (Padraic Farrell) 2,001 (4.4%, -3.2)
Aontú (Alixandra Halliday) 1,047 (2.3%, +2.3)
Independent (John Kelly) 181 (0.4%, +0.4)

Newry and Armagh

Sinn Féin (Dáire Hughes) 22,299 (48.5%, +7.5)
SDLP (Pete Byrne) 6,806 (14.8%, -4.6)
DUP (Gareth Wilson) 5,900 (12.8%, -7.4)
TUV (Keith Ratcliffe) 4,099 (8.9%, +8.9)
UUP (Sam Nicholson) 3,175 (6.9%, -0.8)
Alliance (Helena Young) 2,692 (5.9%, -2.5)
Aontú (Liam Reichenberg) 888 (1.9%, -1.4)
Cons. (Samantha Rayner) 83 (0.2%, +0.2)

North Antrim

TUV (Jim Allister) 11,642 (28.3%, +28.3)
DUP (Ian Paisley) 11,192 (27.2%, -23.6)
Sinn Féin (Philip McGuigan) 7,714 (18.7%, +7.4)
Alliance (Sian Mulholland) 4,488 (10.9%, -3.4)
UUP (Jackson Minford) 3,901 (9.5%, -7.4)
SDLP (Helen Maher) 1,661 (4.0%, -1.9)
Aontú (Ráichéal Mhic Niocaill) 451 (1.1%, +1.1)
Independent (Tristan Morrow) 136 (0.3%, +0.3)

North Down

Independent (Alex Easton) 20,913 (48.3%, +48.3)
Alliance (Stephen Farry) 13,608 (31.4%, -13.5)
UUP (Tim Collins) 6,754 (15.6%, +3.7)
Green (Barry McKee) 1,247 (2.9%, +2.9)
SDLP (Deirdre Vaughan) 657 (1.5%, +1.5)
Independent (Chris Carter) 117 (0.3%, +0.3)

South Antrim

UUP (Robin Swann) 16,311 (38.0%, +8.9)
DUP (Paul Girvan) 8,799 (20.5%, -15.7)
Sinn Féin (Declan Kearney) 8,034 (18.7%, +7.3)
Alliance (John Blair) 4,574 (10.7%, -7.7)
TUV (Mel Lucas) 2,693 (6.3%, +6.3)
SDLP (Roisin Lynch) 1,589 (3.7%, -1.3)
Green (Lesley Veronica) 541 (1.3%, +1.3)
Aontú (Siobhan McErlean) 367 (0.9%, +0.9)

South Down

Sinn Féin (Chris Hazzard) 19,698 (43.5%, +12.7)
SDLP (Colin McGrath) 10,418 (23.0%, -4.2)
DUP (Diane Forsythe) 7,349 (16.2%, -1.9)
Alliance (Andrew McMurray) 3,187 (7.0%, -6.8)
TUV (Jim Wells) 1,893 (4.2%, +4.2)
UUP (Michael O’Loan) 1,411 (3.1%, -4.6)
Aontú (Rosemary McGlone) 797 (1.8%, -0.6)
Green (Declan Walsh) 444 (1.0%, +1.0)
Cons. (Hannah Westropp) 46 (0.1%, +0.1)

Strangford

DUP (Jim Shannon) 15,559 (40.0%, -0.5)
Alliance (Michelle Guy) 10,428 (26.8%, +0.6)
UUP (Richard Smart) 3,941 (10.1%, +0.9)
TUV (Ron McDowell) 3,143 (8.1%, +8.1)
Sinn Féin (Noel Sands) 2,793 (7.2%, -0.4)
SDLP (Will Polland) 1,783 (4.6%, -5.4)
Green (Alexandra Braidner) 703 (1.8%, 0.0)
Independent (Garreth Falls) 256 (0.7%, +0.7)
Independent (Gareth Burns) 157 (0.4%, +0.4)
Cons. (Barry Hetherington) 146 (0.4%, -3.0)

Upper Bann

DUP (Carla Lockhart) 21,642 (45.7%, +4.9)
Sinn Féin (Catherine Nelson) 14,236 (30.1%, +5.4)
Alliance (Eóin Tennyson) 6,322 (13.3%, +0.6)
UUP (Kate Evans) 3,662 (7.7%, -4.8)
SDLP (Malachy Quinn) 1,496 (3.2%, -6.2)

West Tyrone

Sinn Féin (Órfhlaith Begley) 22,711 (52.0%, +11.9)
DUP (Tom Buchanan) 6,794 (15.5%, -6.2)
SDLP (Daniel McCrossan) 5,821 (13.3%, -5.2)
UUP (Matthew Bell) 2,683 (6.1%, -0.5)
TUV (Stevan Patterson) 2,530 (5.8%, +5.8)
Alliance (Stephen Donnelly) 2,287 (5.2%, -4.4)
Aontú (Leza Houston) 778 (1.8%, -0.5)
Cons. (Stephen Lynch) 91 (0.2%, +0.2)

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