Constituency Focus: North Down



North Down is one of Northern Ireland’s most bizarre constituencies. It has a history of electing independents and outliers. UKUP won seats here before and it was the first constituency to elect a Green Party MLA. It has been one of Northern Ireland’s most Unionist constituencies but elected an Alliance MP in 2019, voted remain in 2016 and has never elected a DUP MP despite the party being the largest Unionist party since 2003. North Down is seen a very middle class due to the nature of Holywood and the other East Belfast suburbs it takes in. The largest town in the constituency is Bangor. 

 

Current seats

In 2017 North Down elected 2 DUP MLAs, however Alex Easton now sits as an independent after quitting the party, the rest of the seats are filled by 1 UUP, 1 Alliance and 1 Green. Alliance hold the Westminster seat after Stephen Farry incredibly converted most of Lady Hermon’s vote to his ticket, likely in a show of support for the constituency’s strong remain vote.  

 

Current bloc quotas

Unionism’s lowest tally recently has been 52.3 with a huge high of 81.7%. The large difference comes from Lady Hermon’s vote splitting between Unionists and the non-aligned candidates. 

 

The non-aligned vote has ranged from 15.8% to 45.2%. Both coming in Westminster elections, one with and one without, Lady Hermon on the ballot paper. 

 

Nationalism is almost statistically irrelevant in North Down with a high score of just 3.4%, and that has actually declined in subsequent elections. 

 

Recent electoral trends

The DUP have been relatively steady in North Down with a slight blip in 2019’s local government elections. Alliance seem to be on an upward trajectory however, and may feel a second seat is possible. Lady Hermon’s personal vote in Westminster has skewed analysis of North Down but it seems her vote splits slightly more to Alliance, followed by the UUP, DUP and Greens. The non-aligned bloc has grown in strength, possibly due to views around EU membership. 

 

Candidates

The DUP are defending the two seats they won in 2017 with Stephen Dunne and Jennifer Gilmour. Alex Easton, having won a seat for the DUP in 2017, will defend his seat as an independent. The UUP have 2 candidates standing, incumbent Alan Chambers and Naomi McBurney. John Gordon will represent the TUV and Matthew Robinson is the Conservative candidate.

 

There are 2 other independent candidates standing in North Down, to the best of my knowledge neither are designating as one of the main communities but both appear to lean towards unionism. They are Chris Carter and Ray McKimm. Ray McKimm has, possibly, the most comprehensive manifesto I have ever seen for an independent candidate, he is also currently a councillor on North Down and Ards Council.

 

Andrew Muir and Connie Egan are the Alliance candidates with Rachel Woods representing the Greens. 

 

Deirdre Vaughan is standing for the SDLP and Thérése McCartney for Sinn Féin.

 

Battles

North Down has had a habit of being predictable for a long time in Assembly elections, despite its history of weird results. The DUP, UUP, Alliance and Greens should all have a safe seat. That means the last seat is a battle between the DUP, Alex Easton, TUV and possibly Alliance. Many of us will be watching with great interest to see how Easton fares against the DUP, how much of his vote was a personal vote and how much was a vote for the party. Easton left the DUP when Poots was elected, like several other members of the party, however while others returned for Donaldson’s leadership, Easton did not. 

 

Polling

The non-aligned bloc has been growing recently but anything under 40% of the vote for all of the non-Unionist candidates combined probably means a 3rd seat is not viable. This is one constituency where the DUP look set to feel the effects of poor polling with a double attack coming from Easton and the TUV. Polling is good for Alliance and they will target this seat, but I do not expect them to score anything close to Farry’s result in 2019. Realistically they will simply be seeking to improve on the 25.6% won in the council elections. 

 

Issues

North Down was a strong remain constituency and so the NI Protocol may not seem to be a major issue. Farry has strongly split the opinion of his constituents with those opposed to him being much more vocal. One aspect of this vote could be a mini referendum on the job he is doing. North Down has a large split between the very wealthy and the working class and so a wide range of issues will be covered. Voters have historically drifted towards Green issues. 

 

Predictions 

I think there will be one seat each for the DUP, UUP, Alliance and Greens. I suspect Easton will be successful. He finds himself in a position to win a significant chunk of his first preference votes from last time, but will also prove transfer friendly to both Unionists wishing to vote against the DUP and Unionists transferring down the bloc. With all this in mind I think Easton will hold his seat and inflict a loss onto the DUP. 

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