UUP and the 2022 Assembly Election

The UUP have bounced from a low of 9.3% (Europe 2019) to a high of 14.1% (local government 2019) in the last election cycle with current polling putting them at around the 14% mark. If the UUP polled 14% in May this would be a rise of over 1% in their vote share and, coupled with a decline in the DUP share, should secure some extra seats. In reality the UUP are unlucky not to have had more seats last time around, they won more votes than the SDLP and yet won fewer seats. There are some local factors at play in much of that but if recent tends continue and polling is accurate then the UUP are looking at some handy gains. 

 

The stark difference in UUP results is down to many reasons. Mike Nesbit was party leader for the 2017 Assembly election, since then 3 others have held the top job. The UUP has been through a tough period of deciding what kind of unionist party it wants to be. In addition each of the elections in the last cycle have been fought under difficult circumstances, whether it was a first election for a leader or simply losing out to their larger rivals in the first past the post system. The UUP should be encouraged by they 14.1% of 2019, and should be seeing this as a par score for May 2022. They will also be encouraged by recent polling showing an overall decline in the nationalist vote, in 2017 the ‘nationalist surge’ cost the UUP some seats and they will be targeting those as gains this time around. If the UUP have ambition to grow them they need to show how they are different to the DUP without moving too close to Alliance. It’s possible the party is starting to do that under the leadership of Doug Beattie. 

 

Doug Beattie became the UUP leader in 2021 and has since sought to reform the party. He is ex-army and firmly in the liberal camp of the party. In 2017 the UUP lost a seat in Upper Bann as each constituency dropped from 6 to 5 MLAs. Beattie shaded his running mate Jo-Anne Dobson by around 300 votes on the first count. How different might the UUP be today had that result been the other way around. 

 

Since Beattie became leader the UUP has seemed rejuvenated. As a leader, Beattie is exciting. He contrasts from Steve Aiken who while, hard working and genuine, lacked a media presence. Beattie may shine in the limelight like Mike Nesbitt. He has attracted controversy of course. Historical tweets surfaced showing Beattie using offensive language, seemingly contrary to the attitude he wished to lead the UUP in. In a refreshing change for politics though, Beattie admitted he was wrong and apologised. A trait that many others in politics across the world could do better by displaying. UUP polling figures seemed unaffected by this in the Liverpool Uni poll so we can assume the electorate was generally accepting of his apology, though it will be interesting to see future leader ratings, Beattie was the only one to receive a positive score in the last LucidTalk poll.

 

Since Beattie became leader there has been a raft of new members in the party and plenty of fresh faces nominated as candidates for the upcoming election. Two former Belfast PUP members have joined and one, Julie-Anne Corr-Johnston, will be the candidate for North Belfast. Stephen McCarthy hopes to become only the second Roman Catholic elected to the assembly for the UUP and Ian Marshall seeks to become the first former Irish senator to be elected as a unionist in Northern Ireland. Beattie will hope that these fresh faces, with diverse backgrounds and  political journeys, will help voters see the UUP as a modern party that can genuinely challenge the DUP and represent everyone. Indeed their early campaign video reflected diversity and even featured people playing Gaelic games. 

 

The UUP will be directly competing with two parties, on either side of them on the political spectrum, for votes. The DUP as the long-standing largest unionist party and a broad church for unionism and, Alliance, the option ‘liberal’ unionists have increasingly seen as the choice for them in recent years. While not competing with Sinn Fèin for votes, they will be challenging them for a few specific seats, namely those they finished runners up in back in 2017, seats where Sinn Fèin hold three seats, but could have trouble holding on to. 

 

It’s not an easy job to appeal to a diverse range of voters, but the UUP will have different strategies for these two broad groups. They will hope to present themselves as a pragmatic and, dare I say, ‘cool’ version of unionism in order to contrast from the DUP and hope to attract disillusioned DUP voters. The issue with this is that the party is seen as being weak in the Northern Ireland Protocol. Recent polling suggests it is not as big an issue as many may believe, but coming across as weak on the Protocol can be spun as being weak on the union. This harmed the UUP in 2017 after Mike Nesbitt stated he would give the SDLP his second preference vote.

 

The UUP seeks to win back voters who have abandoned them for Alliance and, indeed those who have abandoned the DUP and bypassed the UUP for Alliance. Beattie hopes to make the UUP the option for unionists who want a liberal, or certainly a socially liberal, alternative to the DUP. Alliance have occupied this ground so expect the UUP to begin talking about policy issues that Alliance have effectively gained traction with in recent years. They may also seek to challenge Alliance on social media in an attempt to attract younger voters. In addition to DUP and Alliance voters the UUP will seek to re-enfranchise unionists who simply do not vote. They will hope to present the party as an exciting new option.

 

It is difficult to properly pin down UUP policy at the minute. In the past I have been impressed by the quality of their election literature, they have tended to highlight different policy issues, the problem is they have never quite been able to carve out a position that most people would notice as being distinctly different from either DUP or Alliance. In the upcoming campaign, expect the UUP to present itself as a pragmatic unionist party that has taken a jump to the left. They will hope this will make them appear different enough to the DUP while appealing to Alliance voters who would view themselves as Unionists. 

 

It will be interesting to see just how many candidates the UUP nominate. Beattie has signalled his intent to challenge in every constituency so with that in mind and knowing they are defending two seats in East Antrim that would be at least 19 candidates. I would expect second runners in Lagan Valley, Strangford, North Down, South Antrim and North Antrim at a minimum if they hope to become the largest Unionist party. The question will be whether or not they decide to field a second candidate in Upper Bann, Beattie’s seat. There are only 3 unionist seats here, the DUP currently hold 2. The TUV will also be challenging. Some have suggested that a unionist seat may fall to Alliance here, but on recent figures an Alliance gain may be more likely to come from the SDLP instead. Even still, fielding 2 candidates may risk Beattie losing. They have the option of balancing heavily in favour of Beattie but that would possibly make a second candidate pointless, they will only win the second seat by having both their candidates ahead of the other unionist candidates on first preferences and it is unlikely that will happen. 

 

The UUP will certainly improve on their current tally of 10. In reality they were unlucky not to have one, possibly even 2, more in 2017. A slight increase in their vote, coupled with the overall decline in the nationalist vote may help deliver as many as 3 gains. They also hope to make gains at the expense of the DUP. The UUP will be aiming for 13 seats based on current polling, anything less will be disappointing, anything more could lead to Beattie becoming Deputy First Minister depending on how many voters the DUP do eventually lose to the TUV. My prediction is that the UUP will win 13 seats with at least 1 being a direct gain from Sinn Fèin. 

* I originally stated that Stephen McCarthy hoped to be the first Roman Catholic elected to the Assembly for the UUP but it has since been pointed out to me that John Gorman, a Catholic, was elected to represent North Down in 1998.