West Belfast (UK Parliament constituency)
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| West Belfast in Northern Ireland |
West Belfast 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 establishment 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 west section of Belfast, though at times it has included the area around the Docks on the north east side of the Lagan Estuary. West Belfast also contains part of the district of Lisburn.
Proposed Boundary changes
At the time of writing the Boundary Commission has proposed alterations for the boundaries of constituencies in Northern Ireland. West Belfast currently has one of the smallest electorates of any constituency in Northern Ireland and it is proposed to expand it further into Lisburn, taking in areas currently contained in Lagan Valley.
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 North Belfast. As the proposals are likely to be subject to public consultation it is likely this suggestion will be made and may be Incorporated into the final boundaries.
Westminster elections
Member of Parliament
The Member of Parliament since the 1997 general election is Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein. He previously held the seat between 1983 and 1992 when he lost it to Joe Hendron of the Social Democratic and Labour Party but regained it in 1997.
Election results
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MPs since 1922
- 1922 - 1929 R.J. Lynn Ulster Unionist Party
- 1929- 1931 W.E.D. Allen Ulster Unionist Party (1929-1931), New Party (1931)
- 1931 - 1943 A.C. Browne Ulster Unionist Party
- 1943 by-election - 1950 John Beattie independent Labour.
- 1950, Rev James Godfrey MacManaway (Ulster Unionist Party) elected. Disqualified after Privy Council inquiry as he was an ordained priest in the Church of Ireland.
- Thomas Teevan Ulster Unionist Party elected in November 1950 by-election
- 1951 - 1955 John Beattie Irish Labour Party
- 1955 - 1964 Patricia McLaughlin (http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/UK%20bios/UK_bios_50s.htm#mclaughlin) Ulster Unionist Party
- 1964 - 1966 James Kilfedder Ulster Unionist Party
- 1966 - 1983 Gerry Fitt Republican Labour Party (1966-1970), Social Democratic and Labour Party (1970-1979), independent socialist (1979-1983)
- 1983 - 1992 Gerry Adams Sinn Fein
- 1992 - 1997 Joe Hendron Social Democratic and Labour Party
- 1997 - present Gerry Adams Sinn Fein
Assemblies and Forum elections
The six MLAs for the constituency elected in the 2003 election are:
- Gerry Adams Sinn Fein
- Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Bairbre De Brun Sinn Fein
- Diane Dodds Democratic Unionist Party
- Michael Ferguson Sinn Fein
- Fra McCann Sinn Fein
In the 1998 election the six MLAs elected were:
- Gerry Adams Sinn Fein
- Alex Attwood Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Bairbre De Brun Sinn Fein
- Joe Hendron Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Alex Maskey Sinn Fein
- Sue Ramsey Sinn Fein
In the 1996 election to the Northern Ireland Peace Forum, 5 Forum members were elected from North Belfast. They were as follows:
- Gerry Adams Sinn Fein
- Annie Armstrong Sinn Fein
- Joe Hendron Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Alex Maskey Sinn Fein
- Dodie McGuinness Sinn Fein
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. West Belfast elected 4 members as follows:
- Gerry Adams Sinn Fein
- Will Glendinning Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
- Joe Hendron Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Thomas Passmore Ulster 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 West Belfast were:
- John Laird Ulster Unionist Party
- Paddy Devlin Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Bob Cooper Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
- Joe Hendron Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Hugh Smyth independent Unionist
- Jean Coulter Ulster Unionist Party
In 1973 elections were held to the Assembly set up under the Sunningdale Agreement. The six members elected from West Belfast were:
- John Laird Ulster Unionist Party anti Sunningdale
- Paddy Devlin Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Bob Cooper Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
- Desmond Gillespie Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Hugh Smyth independent Unionist
- Jean Coulter Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party
Politics and History of the constituency
West Belfast has historically been the most Nationalist of Belfast’s four constituencies, though it is only in the last few decades that the votes for unionist parties have plunged to tiny levels. The constituency is largely made of a long, slender, belt along the Falls Road and its suburban extensions, with three of the five wards from the staunchly Unionist Shankill area now something of a bolt-on, with a several kilometre long Peace Line dividing them from the rest of the constituency. There is also a smaller Protestant enclave at Suffolk.
Unsurprisingly, the tenor of the constituency is largely working class, although there are surprisingly large pockets of middle-class housing in Andersonstown and other suburban parts of the seat. Closer to the centre public-sector terraced housing, both Victorian and high quality modern housing, predominates, while in the suburbs, leafy pockets are scattered among vast soulless post-War housing estates such as Lenadoon and Twinbrook.
The Westminster constituency was consistently held by the Ulster Unionist Party but always had strong Labour movement sympathies. In the UK general election, 1923, the Belfast Labour Party came within 1,000 votes of taking the seat. A by-election in 1943 was won by John Beattie, standing as an independent Labour candidate. For the next twenty-three years the seat would regularly change from unionist to nationalist/labour, with the latter represented by a variety of parties.
In the 1966 general election the seat was won by Gerry Fitt of the Republican Labour Party. Later in 1970 he left that party to become a founder and first leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. In the February 1974 general election, West Belfast was the only constituency in Northern Ireland to elect an MP supporting the Sunningdale Agreement. Fitt's majority was narrow and probably only won because boundary changes had added the Docks section of Belfast (which was Fitt's political base) to the seat. Fitt retained the seat for the next nine years but increasingly distanced himself from nationalist groups and in late 1979 he left the SDLP altogether. He sat as an independent socialist but lost his seat in the 1983 when it was won by Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin.
Adams' share of the vote was small and achieved victory only due to Fitt and the SDLP candidate splitting the non-Sinn Féin vote. In the 1987 Adams narrowly held his seat, but lost it in the 1992 general election amidst a strong tactical voting campaign in favour of Joe Hendron of the Social Democratic and Labour Party by unionists in the Shankill Road area of the constituency. Hendron and his election agent were found guilty in an election court of having performed "corrupt and illegal practices" during the election. However the court upheld the result.
After boundary changes and the IRA ceasefire, support for Sinn Féin in the constituency soared to new levels and in all elections held in the seat since 1996 they have taken over 50% of the vote. In 1997 Adams regained the Westminster seat. Few expect Sinn Féin to lose the seat again for many years.