Northern Ireland General Discussion

[YL]

The Alliance Party is in fact really the "left-wing unionist" party you're looking for - it receives few votes from Catholics.

I don't think this is entirely true.  In areas where the Catholic population is low it often appears quite a few of them are voting Alliance.  See Assembly results in Strangford, for example.

I'm also not sure that Alliance is exactly "left wing" -- I've got the impression that some Alliance supporters are quite right wing in an Orange Book liberal sort of way -- and while it might be generally "unionist" with a small u it is not Unionist.  What defines Alliance is opposition to sectarianism.

Note also that there have been a few UUP figures (including their last MP, who left because of their ill starred alliance with the Tories) not exactly on the right.

(I think Al has said enough about South Down.)

[YL]

Not particularly surprising, but depressing all the same:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/18/chinese-anna-lo-online-racist-abuse-northern-ireland-loyalists

[YL]

Anna Lo (Alliance MLA for South Belfast and Euro election candidate) leaving NI politics because of racism and sectarianism:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/29/northern-ireland-chinese-mp-might-leave-province-racist-abuse

[YL]

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...

Back in the late 80s, Iris Robinson complained to Ulsterbus on behalf of her constituents about there being Irish language signage on suburban buses.

The signage was an ad for language courses in the Alliance Française.

Along the same lines:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/478513.stm
(from 1999)

[YL]

Looks like the Ulster Unionists are pulling out of Government over claims the IRA may have been involved in a recent murder.

[YL]

McDonnell lost. Whether a new face is enough to stop the decline of the party is another thing.

I'm fairly sympathetic to the SDLP, and would generally vote for either them or Alliance if I lived there, but they have a basic problem in that a major reason why people used to vote for them rather than Sinn Féin (what the latter's mates used to get up to) is fading with time.  And I'm not sure what opportunities there are for developing new reasons to vote for them.  So I doubt that changing the leader will make much of a difference.

[YL]

There's been some discussion of this in the main UK thread, perhaps because it had been forgotten that this thread existed.

The front-runner appears to be Lagan Valley MLA and Young Earth creationist Edwin Poots.  Also near the top of the list are Jeffrey Donaldson, MP for Lagan Valley who was once in the UUP, and Gavin Robinson, MP for Belfast East (nb no relation of Peter and Iris).  Poots is perceived as more hardline, Robinson as more moderate.

An MP would either have to resign their Westminster seat or nominate someone else to serve as First Minister, as the First Minister would have to be in the Assembly and double jobbing is banned.  The electorate is just the MPs, MLAs, and I think also their members of the House of Lords; unless there's a sudden rule change this is not a mass membership vote.

[YL]

Dumb question:

According to statistics about half of Northern Irish Protestants are Presbyterians, most of them Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The other half is mostly Church of Ireland (i.e. Anglican), with a minority of Methodists and some other small groups. Only a tiny fraction belongs to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster (i.e. Ian Paisley's fundamentalist splinter church).
Then how would a majority of Northern Irish Protestants vote for Paisley's DUP on a regular basis, a party that puts FPCU ideology front and center? I get why a vote for the DUP may occur at some election, but wouldn't a party emerge that combines Protestant "ethnic" identity politics with a slightly more mainstream outlook on religion and social issues? It seems strange that the PUP or maybe a more moderate version of it is completely unviable.

In the period after the Good Friday Agreement the DUP absorbed a considerable element of the more hardline wing of the UUP, so they became broader based than they had been; indeed Foster herself is an ex-UUP Anglican from County Fermanagh.  So in practice the DUP is a Protestant identity party.

That said, there's definitely a "Bible Belt" vibe in parts of NI, especially in County Antrim, and that goes beyond Paisley's church and would have provided a lot of the DUP's original base.

[YL]

That said, there's definitely a "Bible Belt" vibe in parts of NI, especially in County Antrim, and that goes beyond Paisley's church and would have provided a lot of the DUP's original base.

A majority of DUP members are also members of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster.

What proportion of the church members are members of the party?

[YL]

Poots has confirmed he's standing.

[YL]

It appears Foster is going to both stand down from the Assembly and leave the DUP after quitting as leader.  (BBC story.)  "No longer the party she joined", apparently.

[YL]

It appears Foster is going to both stand down from the Assembly and leave the DUP after quitting as leader.  (BBC story.)  "No longer the party she joined", apparently.

If she means the DUP has become *more* backward and bigoted, that's a bit sobering.

It's probably basically a strop, but given who the favourite to take over is...

[YL]

Jeffrey Donaldson MP enters the DUP leadership contest.

As the article says, though, Poots's campaign claim he already has the votes to win.

[YL]

Next May (or earlier, as the case may be), there will be elections held to the unicameral Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont.

I know it is a year out, but how is it looking?  

At the moment I'd guess that Alliance will make gains at the expense of Unionists, and that Sinn Féin could well be the largest party.  The DUP's choice of leader might give the UUP an opportunity to recover some lost ground amongst more moderate (and less fundamentalist) Protestants, but I'm not sure they're in a state to take it.

A LucidTalk poll in January actually had Alliance on 18% and challenging the DUP (19%) for second place overall (with Sinn Féin ahead on 24%).  It also had the TUV (the ones who think the DUP is too moderate) on 10%, not far behind the UUP (12%) and SDLP (13%).  But polling in Northern Ireland is not easy.

[YL]

Next May (or earlier, as the case may be), there will be elections held to the unicameral Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont.

I know it is a year out, but how is it looking?  

At the moment I'd guess that Alliance will make gains at the expense of Unionists, and that Sinn Féin could well be the largest party.  The DUP's choice of leader might give the UUP an opportunity to recover some lost ground amongst more moderate (and less fundamentalist) Protestants, but I'm not sure they're in a state to take it.

A LucidTalk poll in January actually had Alliance on 18% and challenging the DUP (19%) for second place overall (with Sinn Féin ahead on 24%).  It also had the TUV (the ones who think the DUP is too moderate) on 10%, not far behind the UUP (12%) and SDLP (13%).  But polling in Northern Ireland is not easy.

What would happen if Alliance were to win the most votes in next year's elections? I guess it's not that improbable is the distribution is 24 SF, 19 DUP and 18 Alliance.

How would that effect the power sharing agreement? would it throw a wrench into the already difficult process of forming a government?

If Alliance were to be the largest party, then that complicates things, because they'd get to appoint the First Minister.  (The legislation is quite confusing, but I think that's right.)  Then the Deputy First Minister would be appointed by the largest party of the largest designation, which might well mean Sinn Féin (if Alliance's gains were mostly from Unionism, meaning that there were more Nationalists than Unionists overall).  I'm not sure Unionists would stand being frozen out of those two posts altogether.

Will this hurt the TUV?

"This" as in Poots winning the DUP leadership?  You'd think so, as he would be more in tune with the sort of voter who might defect in that direction than Foster is.

[YL]

Are alliance de facto unionists though? Also how to uk labour supporters in Northern Ireland who are unionist vote?

Alliance are not Unionists with a big U, and do not designate as such in the Assembly.  (They're "Other", together with the Greens and People Before Profit.)  There is a range of views on the constitutional issue within the party, though it's usually been the case, and probably still is, that their supporters would mostly vote for the status quo.

(For those who don't already know this, all MLAs have to "designate" as either "Unionist", "Nationalist", or "Other".  The rules for choosing which party gets to nominate the First Minister and Deputy First Minister refer to the collective strengths of these designations as well as to the parties.)

As for the second question, left-right politics isn't really a thing in Northern Ireland so it's hard to tell.  There have been left of centre Unionist (big U) politicians, including some, like former North Down MP Robert McCartney, who were quite hardline.  (He applied for the Labour whip after being elected in 1995.)  His UUP successor Sylvia Hermon left the party rather than join the alliance with the Tories in 2010.  I'd guess that the more strongly left of centre Protestant voters tend towards Alliance, though.  (Or the Greens.)

[YL]

Are alliance de facto unionists though? Also how to uk labour supporters in Northern Ireland who are unionist vote?

Alliance are not Unionists with a big U, and do not designate as such in the Assembly.  (They're "Other", together with the Greens and People Before Profit.)  There is a range of views on the constitutional issue within the party, though it's usually been the case, and probably still is, that their supporters would mostly vote for the status quo.

(For those who don't already know this, all MLAs have to "designate" as either "Unionist", "Nationalist", or "Other".  The rules for choosing which party gets to nominate the First Minister and Deputy First Minister refer to the collective strengths of these designations as well as to the parties.)

As for the second question, left-right politics isn't really a thing in Northern Ireland so it's hard to tell.  There have been left of centre Unionist (big U) politicians, including some, like former North Down MP Robert McCartney, who were quite hardline.  (He applied for the Labour whip after being elected in 1995.)  His UUP successor Sylvia Hermon left the party rather than join the alliance with the Tories in 2010.  I'd guess that the more strongly left of centre Protestant voters tend towards Alliance, though.  (Or the Greens.)

if the labour party in the uk started to contest the in northern ireland would that be electly viable?

I doubt it.  They might win the odd council seat -- IIRC some Labourish independents sometimes have -- but note that the NI Tories don't even have that at the moment.

[YL]

So will Jeffrey Donaldson be next?

[YL]

Jeffrey Donaldson will be the new DUP leader; there were no other candidates.  So it's back to an ex-UUP figure after the Poots interlude.

Assuming he does indeed move to Stormont, that'll mean a potentially interesting by-election for his Lagan Valley Westminster seat.

[YL]

Latest on the Donaldson succession: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/26/sir-jeffrey-donaldson-endorsed-to-lead-dup

No clear timescale for him taking over from Poots's nominee Paul Givan as First Minister and a Lagan Valley by-election.

[YL]

Jeffrey Donaldson says he intends to stand in Lagan Valley in the forthcoming Assembly election unless a vacancy occurs first.  (Irish Times article)

It'd be interesting if Donaldson, Poots and Givan all stand for the DUP in a constituency where they currently only hold two seats.  Also this would mean a Westminster by-election unless double-jobbing somehow gets unbanned.

[YL]

Where do the TUV and ALL parties fall on the unionist-nationalist spectrum?

"ALL" is Alliance, so neither Unionist with a big U nor Nationalist with a big N, but their voters would presumably break for the status quo in a border poll.  The Greens are also neither Unionist nor Nationalist.

"TUV" is Traditional Unionist Voice: people who think the DUP have gone soft.

[YL]

"ALL" is Alliance, so neither Unionist with a big U nor Nationalist with a big N, but their voters would presumably break for the status quo in a border poll.  The Greens are also neither Unionist nor Nationalist.

Seven years ago that would have been true but Brexit has undermined a lot of previous assumptions. One of the defining features of Alliance support is being pro-EU and what polling we've seen suggests that a plurality of Alliance voters are now small-n nationalist.

Indeed, things have changed; I'm still a bit sceptical that if it actually came to a border poll Alliance voters would break for re-unification, but it's no longer a crazy thought.

[YL]

They really ought to change the rules so that one party can't block the operation of the Assembly like this.  It wouldn't be that big a change to say that if one of the two biggest parties takes their ball away then their role in government formation passes to the next biggest party of their designation.

Unfortunately it's hard to see an election changing very much, and what sort of turnout are we going to get if the voters think that, especially if it's held on 15 December?

[YL]

The Alliance is to a large extent unionist, yes? I consider the Alliance to be a unionist party even if there are some members who support reunification.

Alliance is not a Unionist party.  It is fundamentally an anti-sectarianism party and its members and supporters hold a range of views on the constitutional issue; I suspect that pragmatic support for the status quo, combined with irritation at the disruption to the status quo caused by Brexit, is the median position in the party, but that is not what is meant by "Unionism" in a Northern Ireland context.