Northern Ireland Assembly Elections: May 2017?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I mean check out the party vote maps; Alliance draws its support overwhelmingly from the Protestant side of the great divide.

[Slow Learner]

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And who do conservative Catholics (pro-lifers) vote for? Sinn Fein is rather secularist, even socialist, isn't it? The SDLP doesn't seem to be socially conservative either.

Both. The SDLP is a stubborn pro-life party with no exceptions, and Sinn Fein is only marginally more moderate on the issue.
But who votes on abortion in the UK? This isn't the US so please don't muddle yourself.

While I agree with your latter point, Eastwood has had a softer line on abortion than you imply. There is of course a conservative faction of the SDLP on such matters (Alban Maginess and Dolores Kelly for example), but it's been declining.

[Slow Learner]

I mean check out the party vote maps; Alliance draws its support overwhelmingly from the Protestant side of the great divide.

Yes, and it appears that this election has been a good way to break out of their Belfast base.

[ObserverIE]

My impression is that protestant voters who are "socially liberal" and where they value those social issues over the sectarian issue probably vote Alliance or Greens: maybe also the Trots where they are viable.

I don't see many Protestants voting for PBP; Carroll's surplus in West Belfast gave only a literal handful of votes to the unionist parties last time and the SWP/PBP is seen as being supportive of republicanism. The angels dancing on the pinheads of the SP/CCLA's theology are more Unionist-friendly ("Socialist Federation of the British Isles in a Socialist Federation of Europe") and its candidates have been in Protestant-majority areas with the recent exception of Fermanagh. So, yes, you might say that there are Catholic Trots and Protestant Trots.

[Intell]

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/seatdetails.py?postcode=BT17+0SE

There are areas in the 2015 UK election in west belfast, in where other (PBP) does well, in many cases so does the DUP or the UUP.

Any reason for this? Is it due to living close to living with protestants, irish are more likely to vote for the non-sectarian leftist parties. The working class irish live more closely with working class protestnats, and the irish vote for People Before Profit.

?

[ObserverIE]

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/seatdetails.py?postcode=BT17+0SE

There are areas in the 2015 UK election in west belfast, in where other (PBP) does well, in many cases so does the DUP or the UUP.

Any reason for this? Is it due to living close to living with protestants, irish are more likely to vote for the non-sectarian leftist parties. The working class irish live more closely with working class protestnats, and the irish vote for People Before Profit.

?

Ehmmm....

Falls ward: UUP 111, SDLP 92, DUP 591, UKIP 27, Green 0, SF 448, PBP 673

Any set of figures which has the DUP outpolling SF (or even the SDLP) in Falls ward isn't worth a ****. The only figure that's remotely credible there is that Greens get zero since they didn't stand a candidate.

I don't know how he's calculating those figures, but they're completely unbelievable. There are tallies done in Northern Ireland but they're not done as thoroughly as in the Republic (for one thing, looking at the coverage on Friday, some of the counters will be too far away from the tallyers for the figures to be reliable) and they're not made public.

[nitory1]

There are areas in the 2015 UK election in west belfast, in where other (PBP) does well, in many cases so does the DUP or the UUP.

Any reason for this? Is it due to living close to living with protestants, irish are more likely to vote for the non-sectarian leftist parties. The working class irish live more closely with working class protestnats, and the irish vote for People Before Profit.

?

Electoral calculus are notoriously crap at vote breakdowns in the rest of the UK where they actually have an interest in compiling the results. Their NI ones are beyond the pale in awfulness and just looks like they've taken 5 minutes with a 'will this do?' attitude.
Firstly the wards listed are the ones drawn for the 2014 council amalgamations, the current Westminster boundaries are still based on the old wards, so there's areas of Belfast in the wards listed which are actually in N Belfast and vice versa.
Secondly as has been pointed out, anyone who puts the DUP in 3 figures in a ward called Falls hasn't a clue about Northern Ireland at all never mind its politics. I'm guessing the results were calculated by looking at the 2014 council results in the Court electoral area and dividing roughly evenly between the six wards which it comprises of thinking they were homogeneous. In reality four wards are heavily unionist and comprise of the Shankill with 2 heavily Republican wards in the Falls tacked on.

PBP support was protest votes from dissatisfied republicans and young people along with a few hundred true believers. Their transfers went at a pitiful rate to unionists.

[MaxQue]

Ìn what may delay or affect government formation, Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister and SF leader until 2 months ago, died.

[MAINEiac4434]

Ìn what may delay or affect government formation, Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister and SF leader until 2 months ago, died.

Sad. He and Ian Paisley are remarkable instances of putting aside past differences to come together in the interests of peace and equality. For all McGuinness' flaws, he should be commended for that.

[Clyde1998]

Ìn what may delay or affect government formation, Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister and SF leader until 2 months ago, died.

Saw this on Twitter:

@welshnotbritish: "The Martin McGuinness debate summed up in one picture.

"
"The terrorist or the dreamer, the savage or the brave? Depends who vote you're trying to catch or whose face you're trying to save."

It's not like me to quote or share pictures of banners at Celtic Park, but in this case I think it's worth sharing.