North Belfast (UK Parliament constituency)
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| Belfast North in Northern Ireland |
Belfast North is a Parliamentary Constituency in the House of Commons and also an Assembly constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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Boundaries
The seat was created in 1922 when as part of the establishement of the devolved Stormont Parliament for Northern Ireland, the number of MPs in the Westminster Parliament was drastically cut. The seat is centred on the north section of Belfast, though at times the area around the Docks on the north side of the Lagan Estuary has instead been part of variously East Belfast and West Belfast. Belfast North also contains part of the district of Newtownabbey.
Proposed Boundary changes
At the time of writing the Boundary Commission has proposed alterations for the boundaries of constituencies in Northern Ireland. Belfast North currently has one of the smallest electorates of any constituency in Northern Ireland and it is proposed to expand it further into Newtownabbey, taking in areas currently contained in both East Antrim and South Antrim.
The four wards which the Boundary Commission have proposed to add to the constituency from Newtownabbey have almost exactly the same composition in terms of community background as the existing constituency.
Not included in the proposals is a common suggestion to reunite the five wards centred on the Shankill Road which are currently split between West Belfast and Belfast North. As the proposals are likely to be subject to public consultation it is likely this suggestion will be made and may be encorporated into the final boundaries.
Westminster elections
Member of Parliament
The Member of Parliament since the 2001 general election is Nigel Dodds of the Democratic Unionist Party. He defeated Cecil Walker of the Ulster Unionist Party who had sat for the seat since 1983.
Election results
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MPs since 1922
- 1922 - 1929, T.E. McConnell Ulster Unionist Party
- 1929 - 1945, Thomas Somerset Ulster Unionist Party
- 1945 - 1950, William Frederick Neill Ulster Unionist Party
- 1950 - 1959, H. Montgomery Hyde Ulster Unionist Party Biographical Sketch (http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/hyde.html)
- 1959 - 1974, Stratton Mills Ulster Unionist Party (until 1972), Conservative (1972-1973) (the UUP as a whole had withdrawn from the Conserative whip but Mills refused to secede), Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (1973-1974)
- 1974 - 1979, John Carson Ulster Unionist Party
- 1979 - 1983, Johnny McQuade Democratic Unionist Party
- 1983 - 2001, Cecil Walker Ulster Unionist Party
- 2001 - present, Nigel Dodds Democratic Unionist Party
Assemblies and Forum elections
The six MLAs for the constituency elected in the 2003 election are:
- Fred Cobain Ulster Unionist Party
- Nigel Dodds Democratic Unionist Party
- Gerry Kelly Sinn Fein
- Alban Maginness Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Nelson McCausland Democratic Unionist Party
- Kathy Stanton Sinn Fein
In the 1998 election the six MLAs elected were:
- Fraser Agnew independent Unionist
- Fred Cobain Ulster Unionist Party
- Nigel Dodds Democratic Unionist Party
- Billy Hutchinson Progressive Unionist Party
- Gerry Kelly Sinn Fein
- Alban Maginness Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Fraser Agnew joined with other independent Unionists to form the United Unionist Coalition on September 14, 1998.
In the 1996 election to the Northern Ireland Peace Forum, 5 Forum members were elected from North Belfast. They were as follows:
- David Brown Ulster Unionist Party
- Nigel Dodds Democratic Unionist Party
- Gerry Kelly Sinn Fein
- Alban Maginness Social Democratic and Labour Party
- William Snoddy Democratic Unionist Party
In 1982 elections were held for an Assembly for Northern Ireland to hold the Secretary of State to account, in the hope that this would be the first step towards restoring devolution. North Blefast elected 5 members as follows:
- John Carson Ulster Unionist Party
- Paul Maguire Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
- Frank Millar independent Unionist
- Paschal O'Hare Social Democratic and Labour Party
- George Seawright Democratic Unionist Party
In 1975 elections were held to a Constitutional Convention which sought (unsuccessfully) to generate a consensus on the future of the province. The six members elected from North Belfast were:
- William Annon Democratic Unionist Party
- Billy Bell Ulster Unionist Party
- Gerry Fitt Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Lloyd Hall-Thompson Unionist Party of Northern Ireland
- Frank Millar independent Loyalist
- William Morgan Ulster Unionist Party
In 1973 elections were held to the Assembly set up under the Sunningdale Agreement. The six members elected from North Belfast were:
- John Ferguson Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
- Gerry Fitt Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Lloyd Hall-Thompson Ulster Unionist Party pro Sunningdale
- John McQuade Democratic Unionist Party
- Frank Millar Ulster Unionist Party anti Sunningdale
- William Morgan Ulster Unionist Party pro Sunningdale
Politics and History of the constituency
North Belfast has a unionist majority though the nationalist vote is considerable. It has generated particular interest for a number of highly unusual elections results, as well as for several candidates and MPs prominently disagreeing with their parties.
Of the five main political parties in Northern Ireland, four (the Ulster Unionist Party, the Democratic Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Sinn Fein) all have relatively strong support bases and routinely poll similar results. Other parties such as the Alliance, Progressive Unionist Party, Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, Conservatives and the Workers' Party have at times polled significantly, as have independent candidates, with the result that many elections have been won on comparatively low shares of the vote. The elections to the various assemblies have often seen the seats for the constituency heavily split - in 1998 no party won more than one Assembly seat.
North Belfast contains 14 wards of Belfast City Council and 5 of Newtownabbey Borough Council. The constituency suffered the highest level of violence in Northern Ireland during The Troubles and covers many areas synonymous with the conflict – the New Lodge, Ardoyne, Rathcoole, Ballysillan and Woodvale. The overall tenor of the constituency is working-class, with a high proportion of residents in public housing, and concentrations of low-income single people in the middle Antrim Road and Cliftonville areas. There are some upscale residential areas around Belfast Castle and on the slopes of Cavehill. Sectarian divisions are stark, with a number of Peace Lines cutting through the constituency and, as of 2005, occasional outbursts of sectarian street violence, and was the focus for ugly post-ceasefire incidents such as the Holy Cross dispute.
The area saw a steady out movement of Protestants during The Troubles, to some degree replaced by a growing Catholic population, although the overall population of the area fell sharply. However, all the inner-City communities in the constituency are now haemorrhaging electors, and the overall ethnic composition of the constituency now seems stable.
The seat was consistently held by the Ulster Unionist Party from its creation until the 1970s. In 1972 the first notable dissent occurred when the sitting MP, Stratton Mills, dissented from the UUP's decision to withdraw from the Conservative whip at Westminster over the suspension of the Stormont Parliament. Mills remained as a Conservative MP, but the following year Mills joined the Alliance, giving them their only Westminster representation to date.
In the February 1974 general election the seat was won by John Carson of the Ulster Unionist Party with backing by the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party on a united slate in opposition to the Sunningdale Agreement. Carson's victory came despite a majority of votes being cast for pro Sunningdale candidates, albeit split between the Pro Assembly Unionists, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Northern Ireland Labour Party. Carson held his seat in the October 1974 election but was deselected by the local Ulster Unionists over his support for the minority Labour government.
The 1979 general election saw one of the most dramatic results of all when Johnny McQuade of the Democratic Unionist Party won the seat with a mere 27.6% of the vote - the third lowest total for a successful candidate in a UK general election in the twentieth century. This came about due to the strong showing of several other parties, dividng the vote strongly. McQuade also had the distinction of being the oldest person to be initially elected to Westminster in the 20th century and did not restand at the next general election.
In 1983, Cecil Walker regained the seat for the UUP, beating George Seawright of the DUP. In the 1987 general election the UUP and DUP agreed a pact in opposition to the Anglo Irish Agreement. Seawright had been expelled from the DUP and stood in the election, reviving the Protestant Unionist Party label, but was unsuccessful.
Walker continued to hold the seat until 2001 but gained a reputation for inactivity. In the 2001 general election the DUP contested the seat for the first time since 1983, with their candidate Nigel Dodds campaigning heavily on both their opposition to the Good Friday Agreement and Walker's record. Walker also suffered from a disastrous television interview during the campaign. In the election Walker's vote collapsed to a mere 12%, coming fourth whilst Dodds won the seat. The UUP vote fell even further in both the 2003 Assembly election and the 2005 general election and it seems extremely doubtful that they will retake the seat at the next general election. Much of the attention now focuses on the growth of the Sinn Fein vote.