TUV and the 2022 Assembly election

 

The TUV was formed after Jim Allister left the DUP in protest over the St. Andrews agreement. During it’s entire existence it has been seen as a one man band with the party’s fortunes being centred around the popularity of Jim Allister. The TUV has won some council seats across Northern Ireland in the past but have never managed to get anyone other than the leader elected to Stormont. 

 

The TUV will be appealing to disaffected DUP voters and will hope to scoop up the remains of the relatively small UKIP vote in the east of the province. The plan seems to be a relatively simple one of pointing out that the existing unionists at Stormont, Jim Allister aside, have failed to deliver anything for unionism and indeed have misrepresented unionism so badly that the Northern Ireland Protocol was signed off. The TUV want the protocol scrapped in its entirety and will hope that anti-protocol sentiment will win them votes. 

 

The last election cycle was not good for the TUV. Unionism, as a bloc, receded and voters decided to stick with those most likely to deliver seats. It was also a cycle with many elections and a party the size of the TUV simply could not afford to field candidates in every election. They chose their battles and performed on par in the European and Council elections in 2019. 

 

Polling suggests this could be a big year for the TUV. LucidTalk polling shows TUV support sitting at around the 12%-13% mark. To put that in context, it’s around what the UUP won in 2017 and that allowed them to win 10 seats. The SDLP won fewer first preference votes and won 13 seats. This is what we would expect if the TUV did indeed poll this well. In fact if the election does go the way LucidTalk polling suggests, the TUV could emerge with more MLAs than the SDLP!

 

Liverpool University has the TUV polling between 5%-7%,much lower than the figure above. In the past the Alliance Party has managed to win 8 seats on around 7% but this is due to the party being very transfer friendly. If the TUV polled around this mark then they could win anywhere between 2-7 seats, but given that they would actually be the 3^rdUnionist party in this situation the seat tally would likely be on the lower end of that scale. The TUV could conceivably win 5% and still only return with 1 MLA, but that would be very unusual. 

 

So these two companies are reporting very different figures for the TUV. Interestingly Liverpool University also has a higher figure for the combined, ‘others’ bloc. Bill White of LucidTalk suggested the reason for the disparity was because he believed his company was better at being able to reach TUV voters as part of their panel. It could well be that differing methodologies are producing different results.

 

It is difficult to estimate the likely number of seats the TUV will win with polling being so different. A good estimate is to look at where the DUP is currently strong as these are the seats most likely to shift to the TUV. Currently the DUP has more than one seat in: North Belfast, East Belfast, Strangford, Lagan Valley, Upper Bann, East Londonderry, North Antrim, East Antrim and South Antrim. They also won a second seat in North Down but Alex Easton has since left the party and will defend his seat as an independent. If the TUV were to win one seat from the DUP in each of these areas they would finish with 10 seats adding the current seat they hold. Of course it is unlikely things will go this way, but if the TUV do indeed perform as LucidTalk polling suggests then 10 seats would actually be under par.

 

The TUV do intend to field candidates in every constituency, I assume they will also field two candidates in North Antrim. Where the TUV wins seats may depend on the nature of each constituency. They may have a better chance of winning in strongly unionist areas rather than areas with only one or no unionists elected. The party also have very few Councillors and so cannot rely on well known personalities to attract votes. 

 

This leads to the question, is polling accurate? 

The DUP only slipped in the polls after Boris Johnson concluded the Brexit deal with the EU, the deal which included the Northern Ireland Protocol. The DUP’s last election saw them win over 30% of the vote, almost all of the votes they are expected to lose will go to the TUV. Unionists are angry about the protocol. Polling suggests it may be far down the list of priorities for voters, but it may be that the damage has already been done. Voters have shifted on the basis of the protocol, they just haven’t had the chance to formally shift their vote at the ballot box yet. Many unionists are leaning towards the TUV, it is likely that only the announcement of candidates, or progress in the Northern Ireland Protocol, can reverse their growth. 

 

If the TUV perform well it will have a significant effect on Northern Irish politics. Firstly it will change the environment in Stormont. The TUV will not take a seat on the executive even if it qualifies through the number of seats won. Ironically this may lead to an extra nationalist executive seat, but it all depends on exact numbers. In effect the TUV may form a coherent but unofficial opposition in Stormont. Allister has already performed well in holding the executive to account, perhaps a strong opposition may improve Stormont. Indeed the Assembly recently voted for a 10% cut in private rents only to reverse the decision a week later, seemingly because they did not realise what they were originally voting for! 

 

The other effect will be what happens to the DUP. A competitive TUV may cause the DUP to change policy in order to stem the flow of voters to Allister’s party. The most noticeable outcome could well be the DUP refusing to form an executive after the election if it emerged as the largest unionist party. There may also be defections, many will remember the high profile defections from key UUP members to the DUP after the Belfast Agreement.n

 

Unionist politics is volatile at the minute. It is difficult to know exactly who is doing well. I didn’t predict a seat figure for the DUP and I won’t for the TUV either. I do expect most TUV gains to come at the expense of the DUP, but we cannot rule out gains from nationalists in those constituencies where the UUP are also targeting a gain. It does seem inevitable that the TUV will improve on its solitary seat, how much they improve remains to be seen.

 

I intend to write some short pieces about the other smaller parties in the coming weeks, in addition to campaign updates. And an in depth look at the 18 constituencies.