Constituency Focus: East Antrim



East Antrim has been prominent in discussion around Brexit following the introduction of the Irish Sea border. The constituency is centred around Larne and Carrickfergus but also takes in parts of Newtownabbey and stretches along the coast road beyond Glenarm. It is a very Protestant constituency with most of the Catholic population being in the north of the constituency.

 

Current seats

The DUP and UUP both have 2 seats each with Alliance holding the other seat. It is the only constituency where the UUP have more than one seat. The MP for the area is the DUP’s Sammy Wilson.

 

Current bloc quotas

Unionism has ranged from a low share of 59.4% to a high share of 70.1%. 

 

Nationalism has gone from 7.7% to 14%. There was a significant drop between 2017 and 2019, perhaps Alliance have been successful at swaying Nationalist voters. 

 

The non aligned bloc has ranged from 15.6% to 29.1%. That latter score was in the most recent Westminster election and if replicated in May would probably give Alliance 2 seats after Nationalost transfers.

 

Recent electoral trends

The DUP has been well ahead of its Unionist rivals with the smallest gap being 12 points to the UUP. The Unionist share has declined with Alliance doing well.

 

Alliance have also eaten into the Nationalist vote. Between 2017 and 2019 the Nationalist vote almost halved and Alliance were the main beneficiaries of this. 

 

Sinn Féin lost its seat in 2017 due to the constituencies dropping from 6 to 5 seats. Nationalism just about had a quota then but the bloc is well short of a quota now. 

 

Candidates

The DUP have 2 candidates, both are sitting MLAs, David Hilditch and, former economy minister, Gordon Lyons. The 2 UUP MLAs are also defending their seats they are Roy Beggs and John Stewart. Norman Boyd is standing for the TUV. 

 

Alliance have 2 candidates running as they seek to make a gain. Stewart Dickson will defend his seat and will hope to bring Danny Donnelly along with him. Mark Bailey is contesting the seat for the Green Party.

 

Former MLA Oliver McMullan is standing for Sinn Féin and Siobhán McAlister is the SDLP candidate. 

 

Polling

Alliance will be very hopeful of a gain here. They are polling well and had a brilliant result in 2019’s Westminster election finishing as runners up. It should be noted there was strong anti-DUP sentiment at the time and the UUP decided to run South Antrim MLA Steve Aiken as their candidate. 

 

The TUV will also be encouraged by recent polling and will see East Antrim as a key target. Allister’s party will no doubt use the the NI Protocol and Irish Sea border to try to win over some disaffected DUP voters.

 

Issues

The NI Protocol will be among the top issues here. Checks had to be stopped at the port of Larne due to threats allegedly being made against staff. The recent P&O scandal may also be an issue, no doubt many former members of staff lived in the constituency and would certainly have contributed to the local economy. Larne FC have become a strong football team recently and have gone professional adding some excitement to the town, having seen the benefits of private investment in sport it might be wise for candidates to promote public spending in sport for the area.

 

Predictions  

This is a tough one to call. I suspect the TUV may win a seat here but it is difficult to suggest who it may be from. The current Unionist MLAs are all very popular and have strong support bases, while the DUP may be slipping in popularity, there is perhaps a chance the local MLAs May outperform their party. This is also one of Alliance’s key targets and they are certainly in with a chance. I had a chat about this constituency last week and that conversation has possibly swayed my thinking somewhat. Prior to that I thought this constituency might elect 1 DUP, 1 TUV, 1 UUP and, 2 Alliance. After the conversation I think Unionism perform better.  It is possible that Alliance gained some tactical anti-DUP or anti-Sammy Wilson votes and that the current MLAs are popular enough to hold their support. I now think the constituency may finish as it starts, 2 DUP, 2 UUP, 1 Alliance. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2024 Westminster election in NI

Image
  We all know the headlines, Ian Paisley lost his seat, the DUP lost Lagan Valley, Alex Easton unseated Stephen Farry and Sinn Féin won the most seats, but what are the interesting takes from this election and what should we look for in the future? Tactical voting In GB the election will be known for a huge amount of tactical voting with Labour winning a landslide on just 35% of the vote, but tactical voting did not as have much of an influence in Northern Ireland. Parties stepped aside in North down (DUP, TUV & SF), Fermanagh and South Tyrone (DUP & TUV), Belfast East (SF), Belfast South and Mid Down (SF), and Lagan Valley (SF). In North Down Alex Easton won with a 7,000 vote majority and clearly took votes from Alliance as well as the other unionists. The Nationalist vote is considered strong if it tops 1,000 in North Down so Sinn Féin voters would have had limited impact by voting for Alliance anyway. The DUP still probably have hopes of winning Easton back to the party a
Read more

NI Parliamentary electorate at the beginning of 2024.

Image
  2024 will definitely be a general election year for the UK, and will be the first election fought on the new constituency boundaries. I have had a look at how many voters are currently registered for Parliamentary elections in Northern Ireland and compared that to the register at the time of December 2019 election. Unfortunately the electoral office is still posting updates of the register based on the previous boundaries, however this is useful for a comparison to 2019 and for showing how necessary the boundary changes are. I had hoped to map the wards onto the new boundaries, but it seems some wards have also changed making an accurate comparison impossible at this stage.   There are currently 1,349,229 registered voters in Northern Ireland for a parliamentary election, this is an increase of 4.1% or 52,922 voters since December 2019.    Based on the previous constituency boundaries the largest constituency would have been Upper Bann with 86,920 voters compared to just 67,276 voter
Read more

A brief look at the size of Northern Ireland’s new constituencies ahead of the July 2024 General Election.

Image
  The General Election on 4 th May 2024 will be the first time we go to the polls the new constituency boundaries in place. Constituency boundaries were changed to make the UK’s electoral boundaries more equal in size. Each constituency must fall with the range of 69,724 – 77,062 voters due to the Uk average constituency size across 645 (not 650) constituencies is 73,393, so a 5% margin either side of this figure. Between England and Scotland 5 constituencies are exempt from this rule due to geographical reasons (Scottish Islands, Isle of Wight etc.) Northern Ireland was also granted a further 5% margin due to geographical constraints with more than half the constituencies either bordering the Republic of Ireland or the sea, however the commission did not need to use this extra leeway, opting instead to split some wards.* The boundary commission review used the electoral register from 2 nd March 2022 and since then (as of May 2024) Northern Ireland has added 55,673 voters. Some cons
Read more