NI Pols

  Newry and Armagh is a Sinn Féin stronghold and has been since Séamus Mallon retired. It is the only constituency to take in two cities in Northern Ireland with Armagh being a historic city and Newry being a city since the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. The area had major issues during the troubles due to its proximity to the border. Newry has had periods of small economic booms due to cross border trade.     Current seats Sinn Féin currently holds 3 seats, and won them comfortably last time around. The SDLP and DUP each hold 1. It was a actually a fairly comfortable win for all candidates last time. Sinn Féin’s Mickey Brady is the MP for the area.    Current bloc quotas Nationalism’s recent low is 59.2% with a high of 64.8%. Anything under 60% Could see the 4 th  Nationalist seat lost.    Unionism has ranged from just 26.9% to 32.9%. Even the high score is not 2 quotas and, while a second seat would not be impossible, a Unionist gain looks very unlikel...

Upper Bann is one of the largest constituencies in terms of population. It is a prime example of why the boundaries need reviewed. With that in mind expect a huge quota here, possibly as high as 9,000! The constituency takes in Lurgan, Craigavon and Portadown among rural areas. It is more Protestant that Catholic and contains the origin place of the Orange Order.    Current seats The DUP hold 2 seats here having successfully defended both in 2017. The UUP, SDLP and Sinn Féin have one each. The DUP’s Carla Lockhart represents the constituency at Parliament.    Current bloc quotas Unionism’s recent low was 53.4% in the 2019 Westminster election with a high of 58.9%.     Nationalism has ranged from 33.8% (right on the limit of 2 quotas) to 38.7%. Some Nationalist voters went for Alliance at the last Westminster election. This is interesting because, unlike Lagan Valley, Strangford and East Belfast, where this also happened, Alliance had no hope of winning...

South Down is one of Northern Ireland’s most tourist friendly constituencies, being the home of the Mourne Mountains. It is the first border constituency we are looking at and it is generally rural with its western extremities ending just before Newry while also reaching as Far East as the Irish sea. The constituency is mainly Catholic with a few very Protestant towns.     Current seats Sinn Féin and the SDLP each hold seats. The other seat was won by the DUP in 2017 with Jim Wells who subsequently lost the party whip. Alliance were runners up last time around and would have won the final seat at the expense of the SDLP had they been able to secure Unionist transfers. Sinn Féin’s Chris Hazzard has been MP since 2017, defeating former SDLP leader Baroness Ritchie.    Current bloc quotas Nationalism’s recent low in South down saw the bloc win 56.6% of the vote while the bloc has polled as high as 75%. The caveat with the higher number is the SDLP’s tendency to win some...

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. ...

Strangford is another stronghold for the DUP and Unionism at large. It takes in the outskirts of East Belfast and much of mid Down and the Ards Peninsula with Newtownards being the major town in the constituency. The SDLP have finished as runners up in every Assembly election since 1998. Interestingly the town of Strangford is not actually in the constituency.    Current seats The DUP currently holds 3 seats, the only constituency where it does, with the UUP having 1. The final seat is held by Alliance. The DUP’s Jim Shannon has been MP for the constituency since 2010 while the seat has been held by the DUP since 2001.    Current bloc quotas Unionism hit a low of 57.2% in the 2019 council elections and had a high of 74.7% in the 2019 Westminster election. Jim Shannon managed to win 62% of that vote himself.    Nationalism is not close to a quota here with results ranging from as low as 6.8% to a high of 11%. Even with that high it would take very favourable...

Lagan Valley takes in some Belfast suburbs but is largely centred around Lisburn and takes in the rural areas that look to Lisburn. It is is another of the most Protestant constituencies in Northern Ireland, a significant chunk of the nationalist vote comes from the West Belfast end of the constituency. It is largely seen as middle class however it has significant working class communities such as Ballymacash and Hillhall.    Current seats In the last election the DUP won 2 seats with the UUP, Alliance and SDLP winning 1 each. The SDLP famously won the last seat after a large number of UUP transfers went to Pat Catney over Brenda Hale. This was probably the one area where the ‘Vote Mike get Colum’ idea actually led to a seat change. Lagan Valley is currently represented by DUP party leader Jeffrey Donaldson at Westminster.    Current bloc quotas Nationalism’s high in Lagan Valley in the last election cycle came in 2017 when Catney won the seat. The combined Nationali...

South Belfast is seen as Northern Ireland’s most diverse constituency. It is the home of Queen’s University and has a large student population. You can also find Northern Ireland’s richest post code along with working class areas such as Sandy Row. The constituency has a large population of foreign nationals and has been the first place to look for people seeking to make Northern Ireland their home. The international meeting point is based in South Belfast. South Belfast stretches further out of the Belfast Council area than the other 3 city constituencies into Carryduff. Following major demographic changes in the 1990s the constituency became much more Catholic and has elected a nationalist MP in every election since 2005,with the exception of 2017. South Belfast was the first constituency in the UK to elect a Chinese National to any political body in the UK when Anna Lo won a seat in 2007.   Current seats The constituency is currently represented by 5 different parties, which doe...