Northern Ireland Votes: East Antrim

Tucked away on the very North East of Ireland, East Antrim is, in common with the rest of Antrim, overwhelmingly protestant, though there is a small Catholic minority, particularly in the South of the constituency where the constituency covers part of the Belfast commuter belt. Only 13.3% described themselves as Catholic in the 2001 census. At Westminster the seat has always been held by Unionists. To start with, we’ll look at the most recent election in East Antrim, which was the 2010 Westminster election:

Candidate	Party	Vote	Change
Sammy Wilson	DUP	45.9%	-1.0%
Rodney McCune	UUP/Con	23.7%	-1.4%
Gerry Lynch	Alliance	11.1%	-3.6%
Oliver McMullan	Sinn Fein	6.8%	+1.4%
Justin McCamphill	SDLP	6.6%	-0.8%
Samuel Morrison	TUV	6.0%	+6.0%

The seat was won by Sammy Wilson, who is the Finance Minister in the Northern Irish Executive. As in other Northern Irish seats the TUV threat failed to materialise though clearly the DUP and UUP lost some support to the party. The Alliance lost 3.6%, but this perhaps has something to do with the fact that their prior candidate was Sean Neeson, their former leader. A slight boost for Sinn Fein likely came from the SDLP and the Alliance, in addition to slight boundary changes, bringing in Republican areas from North Antrim.

MLA	Party	First Pref	Round Elected
Sammy Wilson	DUP	22.5%	1
George Dawson	DUP	13.9%	2
Seán Neeson	Alliance	10.4%	10
Roy Beggs Jr.	UUP	10.2%	12
David Hilditch	DUP	9.1%	3
Ken Robinson	UUP	6.3%	13
Alastair Ross	DUP	N/A	N/A

Best Losers	Party	First Pref	Round Eliminated
Daniel O'Connor	SDLP	5.9%	13
Stewart Dickson	Alliance	5.4%	9
Mark Dunn	UUP	5.4%	10
Oliver McMullan	Sinn Fein	3.9%	9

Overall Result

Party	Vote	Seats
DUP	45.5%	3
UUP	21.9%	2
Alliance	15.8%	1
SDLP	5.9%	0
Sinn Fein	3.9%	0

The Incumbents

Sammy Wilson (DUP) is the Executive’s Finance Minister, as I said earlier. As such he is easily one of the most high profile MLAs in all Northern Ireland. Whilst Wilson is outspoken and controversial (particularly in his views on climate change), he is well known, is the Westminster MP, and with the strong DUP backing in the constituency he is safe, assuming he runs again.

George Dawson (DUP) died in 2007, shortly after his re-election. He was replaced as MLA by Alastair Ross. At only 28 years a relatively young politician, Ross is a former researcher of Sammy Wilson’s. Ross has been a pretty low-key MLA from what I can tell, but after almost four years as a MLA, and considering the high popularity of the DUP, assuming he runs again, he is safe too, though he may come third of the DUP MLAs.

Seán Neeson (Alliance) is a former Alliance leader but has announced he is standing down.

Roy Beggs Jr. (UUP) is the son of Roy Beggs, who was MP for the constituency until 2005. Beggs Sr. had been a member of the DUP in a prior life, so this may say a lot about his politics considering the DUP is typically strongest in Antrim. Beggs Jr. is best known for complaining about the presence of Derek Warfield’s Irish nationalist music on an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Boston referring to it as the same as “the speeches of Osama Bin Laden being played on a transatlantic Arabian airline.” Beggs has been a MLA since 1998, and so is no doubt well known to his constituents. As his fellow UUP MLA, Ken Robinson, is standing down, Beggs can probably count himself as fairly safe.

David Hilditch (DUP) is a former postman who was given the Royal Ulster Constabulary Bravery Award in 1997 for stopping a postal robbery. A long-term councillor and then mayor in Carrickfergus, a town in this seat, Hilditch has been a MLA since 1998, Hilditch got the least of the three MLAs in 2007, but still got elected on the third count, suggesting he is relatively safe. With the death of George Dawson, he is even safer, assuming he runs.

Ken Robinson (UUP) is sixty eight, has been a MLA since 1998 and is standing down, presumably to retire.

The challengers

With Ken Robinson and Seán Neeson standing down there will be at least two new MLAs in May. The other four MLAs all appear to be safe, so there are two seats up for grabs, excluding any surprises. The Alliance got a healthy 15.8% of the vote in 2007 with one candidate eliminated, while they lost some votes in 2010, the party has generally been on the up. Whilst some of this popularity is probably a personal vote for Seán Neeson, it seems likely that the Alliance can count their seat as safe. The Alliance is running two candidates in East Antrim during this election, which certainly suggests they think it is (typically a party will run one more candidate that they feel they’re certain to get). The Alliance’s two candidates are Stewart Dickson and Geraldine Mulvenna. Dickson ran in the seat in 2007 and was the second best performing eliminated candidate. He has been a Carrickfergus councillor since 1977, and is the current party chair. Geraldine Mulvenna is a councillor in Larne and a former deputy mayor. Of the two Dickson appears the more likely to be elected to me, but nothing is certain.

That just leaves the second UUP seat. The UUP have selected Rodney McCune, who was the party’s joint candidate for the Westminster seat in 2010. McCune’s vote held up pretty well, and if the combined UUP vote can equal his Westminster score he has a pretty good chance of holding the seat.

The DUP could reasonably run a fourth candidate (the DUP has not yet selected its candidates) and have a go too. Based on their scores in 2010 and 2007 they would be in with a chance, but would need to outperform their 2007 performance by a fair degree to win a seat or gain substantial transfers from other unionist candidates. The Alliance is clearly going for it too, but while this is a strong constituency for them, my view is that they will need to outperform their 2007 and 2010 results by a larger amount to win the seat. Otherwise there is the potential here for a nationalist MLA in East Antrim.

Based upon the 2007 and 2010 results in particular there may be just enough nationalist voters here to reach the quota. Minor boundary changes have bought in Nationalist voters from North Antrum additionally. If Sinn Féin or the SDLP can unite the nationalist vote behind their candidate when one or the other is eliminated they may gain enough votes to win here. It should be noted that the SDLP’s Daniel O’Connor was the best performing loser in 2007, and on the final count was just 900 votes short of unseating Ken Robinson. The 2010 Westminster result shows a boost in nationalist support and just enough votes for a nationalist MLA. It is possible, due to their higher 2010 result, that Sinn Féin could take the seat rather than the SDLP. Nonetheless the SDLP will no doubt fight Sinn Féin tooth and nail for it, and in the Belfast commuter belt region in the South of the constituency it may have a more solid support base. The SDLP have selected 2010 general election candidate Justin McCamphill. Sinn Féin has not yet selected their candidate.

The TUV will certainly run here but they will need to vastly exceed their 2010 result if they are to win a seat. The party appears to be continuing to flounder and so I suspect it will be lucky to gain a seat. The chances are that whatever voters it does get will simply transfer to other Unionist candidates during the count. Nonetheless the TUV’s support has not been well tested in the area, and it may have more support than I give it credit for.