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ABSTRACT
With echoes of the dividing lines of the United Kingdom’s 2016 referendum, a majority of voters in Northern Ireland supported pro-Remain candidates in the 2019 European Parliament election. However, whereas the results in many parts of the UK reflected a highly polarised electorate, voters in Northern Ireland appeared more receptive to compromise: a majority of their newly elected MEPs expressed support for the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by the UK government with the EU – the only constituency in the UK where this was the case. The comfortable re-election of Diane Dodds and Martina Anderson affirmed the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin as the dominant unionist and nationalist parties respectively. However, a surge in support for the Alliance Party, which saw Naomi Long win a seat at the expense of the Ulster Unionist Party, marked a notable shift towards the ethno-national centre-ground: one in five first preference votes went to a candidate aligned with neither nationalism nor unionism. This report contextualises the election campaign and considers the implications of the results.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Sean Haughey is Lecturer in Politics at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool.
James Pow is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Political Research, KU Leuven.
Notes
1 Northern Ireland surpassed Belgium’s world record for going the longest period of time in peacetime without a government (541 days) in late August 2018. Guinness World Records, however, continue to recognise Belgium as the official record holder because Northern Ireland, as a devolved administration, does not qualify under the organisation’s criteria (Devenport, Citation2018).
2 For the Scottish Government’s consideration of Brexit matters see https://www.gov.scot/brexit/; for the Welsh Government see https://gov.wales/brexit (both accessed 17 June 2019). The Northern Ireland Assembly’s Research and Information Service last produced a briefing paper on the potential implications of EU withdrawal in May 2017. See http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/documents/raise/publications/2017-2022/2017/economy/3017.pdf (accessed 18 June 2019).
3 Northern Ireland officials can attend as observers. See https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-administration-and-constitutional-affairs-committee/news-parliament-2017/interparliamentary-forum-brexit-17-19/ (accessed 18 June 2019).
4 Despite there being no functioning Assembly or Executive in Northern Ireland, MLAs continue to be employed in their official capacity as elected representatives. Partly in recognition of the substantial constituency service work they undertake (see Haughey, Citation2017), MLAs continue to be paid their salary at a reduced rate.
5 In exchange for approximately £1 billion in new funding for Northern Ireland, the DUP pledged the support of its 10 MPs for the Conservative government on key votes, such as those relating to the Queen’s Speech, the Budget, and Brexit. See Tonge (Citation2017b).
6 The DUP argue that the backstop, if operational, would create trade barriers between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. This, they argue, is because Northern Ireland would be subject to some EU regulations that would not apply to the rest of the UK (DUP, Citation2019a).
7 Jacob Rees-Mogg, for example, previously indicated that he would only support the Withdrawal Agreement if DUP support for the deal was also attained (Mowat, Citation2019).
8 After weeks of uncertainty as to whether the UK would in fact participate, the government finally conceded on 7 May 2019 that, with the exit date delayed until 31 October, the country was legally obliged to hold European elections on 23 May (BBC, Citation2019b).
9 In the context of Northern Ireland politics, the term ‘centre ground’ tends to refer to voters and parties who are neither nationalist nor unionist. It is an imperfect term given that some of these parties – such as the Green Party – are patently left of centre on other dimensions.
10 This exchange took place in a debate broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland’s The View on 16 May 2019. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4RzDyyWmt8 (accessed 16 June 2019).
11 Most UUP MLAs and the majority of its 100-strong ruling Executive supported Remain. Notably, however, party grandees such as David Trimble backed Leave, as did over 40 percent of UUP members (see Hennessey et al. Citation2014, p. 81).
12 The UTV debate was broadcast on 13 May 2019, and is available at https://www.itv.com/utvprogrammes/view-from-stormont/view-from-stormont-episode-101 (accessed 27 June 2019).
13 This was a reference to the misleading message displayed on a Leave campaign bus prior to the 2016 referendum: ‘We send the EU £350 million a week; let’s fund our NHS instead’.
14 See Paragraph O of European Parliament resolution (5 April 2017) on negotiations with the United Kingdom (2017/2593(RSP)). It is available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2017-0102_EN.html (accessed 20 June 2019).
15 The Good Friday Agreement has a provision that entitles citizens born in Northern Ireland to identify as Irish, British or both.
16 STV is used in all elections in Northern Ireland except for Westminster, which are conducted using first-past-the-post.
17 Along with the Green Party, Sinn Féin is the only party to compete in elections on both sides of the border. The SDLP entered a ‘partnership’ with Fianna Fáil early in 2019, but the arrangement does not constitute a formal merger (BBC News, Citation2019a).