Northern Ireland Votes: East Londonderry

Back to the North of the province today, as we hit East Londonderry; this constituency consists of the Eastern part of County Londonderry, not covered by Foyle, as well as a couple of areas of County Antrim. To its West sits the highly Catholic Foyle, to its East sits County Antrim, the spiritual heartland of the DUP. In many ways it is a profoundly average constituency – in terms of education, economics and family statistics. Its slightly more Protestant than average – about 60% to 35% Catholic, though the constituency demonstrates considerable variability across it. This internal variability means that, while on the surface it looks a bit unexciting; in reality East Londonderry has some very interesting dynamics bubbling away under the surface. You can see the 2010 Westminster result below:

Candidate	Party	Vote	Change
Gregory Campbell	DUP	34.6%	-6.3%
Cathal O’hOisin	Sinn Fein	19.3%	+1.9%
Lesley MacCauley	UUP/Con	17.8%	-1.9%
Thomas Conway	SDLP	15.4%	-3.9%
William Ross	TUV	7.4%	+7.4%
Bernard Fitzpatrick	Alliance	5.5%	+3.4%

In a sense a fairly uninteresting hold, but look at the breakdown. The divided nature of this seat is made clear. While the DUP is clearly the largest party the other three main parties all have a clear presence. Additionally the TUV and Alliance both did relatively well.

MLA	Party		First Pref	Round Elected
Gregory Campbell	DUP		20.2%	1
Francie Brollie	Sinn Fein		13.2%	7
George Robinson	DUP		11.8%	4
David McClarty	UUP/IND		8.5%	9
Adrian McQuillan	DUP		7.8%	9
John Dallat	SDLP		7.8%	8
Billy Leonard	Sinn Fein		N/A	N/A

Best Losers	Party	First Pref	Round Eliminated
Billy Leonard	Sinn Fein	7.1%	7
Norman Hillis	UUP	6.1%	9
Orla Beattie	SDLP	5.3%	7
Bernard Fitzpatrick	Alliance	4.1%	5
Edwin Stevenson	UUP	3.9%	4

Overall Result

Party	Vote	Seats
DUP	39.8%	3
Sinn Fein	20.0%	1
UUP	18.5%	1
SDLP	13.1%	1
Alliance	4.1%	0

The Incumbents

Gregory Campbell (DUP) is this constituency’s MP and a former Minister of Culture in the Northern Irish Executive (he lost his ministry when Peter Robinson announced that no DUP MP could be a minister in the executive). Campbell is a long time DUP activist who was the party’s perennial candidate for the seat of Foyle during the 80s and early 90s before transferring to this actually winnable seat in 1997, defeating the UUP in 2001 and holding the seat ever since. He has been a MLA for the seat since 2001. He was targeted by a particularly nasty facebook hate campaign in 2010. Considering he is the seat’s MP he may not run, in line with the DUP’s position on ‘double jobbing’, but if he does he’s safe.

Francie Brolly (Sinn Fein) retired from the Assembly in 2009, which is fair enough considering that the veteran politician was 71 years old. He was replaced by Billy Leonard his 2007 running mate, who got 7.1% of first preferences in 2007. Leonard is a rather odd Sinn Fein politician, because he was brought up Protestant, was a member of the RUC and is a former member of the Orange Order! Leonard has gone on a rather bizarre journey from unionist to SDLP councillor to eventually becoming a Sinn Fein MLA. Leonard has announced he will not be standing in May, leaving this seat open.

George Robinson (DUP) is a long-time local councillor, having been a councillor on Limavady council since 2002. He has an established political base in Limavady and his constituency office is based there. He has also a former Mayor of the town. While not prominent nationally he clearly has a strong base in the constituency and can get expect to get re-elected fairly easily.

David McClarty (Elected as UUP, now Independent Unionist). McClarty has been a MLA for this seat since 1998, and was a councillor since 1989, and was a former UUP Chief Whip. In December McClarty, a prominent moderate within the party, was deselected, and in response he left the party and has decided to stand again as an Independent Unionist. It’s difficult to tell how good McClarty’s chances are – he was a prominent MLA and it says something that of 3 UUP MLAs, including a fellow incumbent in Norman Hillis, McClarty was the only one elected in 2007. He may also be able to gain transfers from the cross-community vote, the Alliance in particular. Frankly predicting McClarty’s chances is probably only possible from County Londonderry itself and will depend on the level of infrastructure he can build in a short time, his local popularity vs. the popularity of the UUP party label, and how the transfers fall. If any readers are from the seat and would like to report on whether they’ve noticed any activity from the McClarty campaign, it would be most appreciated in the comments!

Adrian McQuillan (DUP) is a former postman turned Councillor on Coleraine Council since 2001. As a first term incumbent as far as I can tell McQuillan hasn’t made much of a mark on the Assembly and with DUP vote falling in May 2010 to a degree which would only elect 2.4 MLAs. I think McQuillan might be in trouble here, though the UUP/McClarty fight may aid him, and we should not count the DUP out here.

John Dallat (SDLP) is a former Mayor of Coleraine, the first Nationalist Mayor in fact. He has been a councillor in Coleraine since 1997, and a MLA since 1998. He is also SDLP spokesperson on the Environment. There is a decent SDLP vote which should only increase with the boundary changes. The SDLP would have to lose a lot of their 2010 support to lose the seat. Dallat was nominated for a ‘Slugger Award’ in ‘Constructive Opposition’ this year for his role in the NI Water crisis. If Dallat runs again he is sure to be re-elected. Though, that said, the SDLP has not released a candidate list here yet, and the 63 year old politician did not run in 2010 which makes me suspect he may retire. Either way the SDLP can be assured of holding this seat.

The Challengers

A bumper crop here then as the Sinn Fein seat is open and David McClarty and Adrian McQuillan’s seats both in danger.

Let’s start with the easiest seat. The Sinn Fein seat will undoubtedly be held by Sinn Fein. It is difficult to imagine that a seat in which they attained almost 20% of the vote last May will fall below the 14.4% quota level this May. Sinn Fein haven’t released their candidate list yet but I think it’s a safe bet that they’ll put up two candidates and that one of them will be last year’s Westminster candidate Cathal O’hOisin (I have checked, that IS the correct capitalisation). A local councillor, my suspicion is that O’hOisin’s selection in 2010 demonstrates a desire by Sinn Fein for the councillor to be the next MLA.

I covered some of the issues with the McClarty seat earlier. If McClarty does not win re-election the most likely outcome is that the UUP hold it. The UUP is running two candidates, Lesley Macauley and David Harding. Macauley was the party’s Westminster candidate last year, and is a former native of Belfast where she was a youth worker in the notorious Shankill area, as well as a NSPCC fundraising manager. Harding, on the other hand, was the party’s Westminster candidate in Foyle. Harding is a Vet, originally from Carlisle, but a native of Northern Ireland for 25 years now. As the former candidate for this seat Macauley is probably the more recognisable candidate but neither appears to have an established political base in the constituency, and so I find it difficult to call which has the better chance.

Alternatively to the UUP simply getting McClarty’s seat back it is worth recalling that STV elections are never truly binary affairs. McClarty could be elected and the UUP could win McQuillan’s seat. There is a strong UUP vote here – one that held up relatively well without McClarty on the ticket, so the real question is whether McClarty can take enough votes from his former party to be elected in the first place. If he reduces it by 7% or more than he’ll probably take the seat and the UUP will probably lose out. For what it’s worth my guess (and it is a guess, however educated) would be against this scenario however.

Alternatively there is a possibility for a TUV seat, but this will require an increase in the TUV vote (tricky), solid preferencing from other Unionist candidates (trickier) and a bit of luck. If the TUV is eliminated early on, however, their votes will likely return to the DUP, on the whole, helping them to hold the seat.

Lastly this seat holds a slight opportunity for the Alliance. Their vote has clearly been growing here for a while and in Bernard Fitzpatrick the seat appears to have an Alliance candidate who works the constituency quite hard, which is often the way the Alliance gets MLAs. There is an opportunity for decent transfers from the Nationalists too as the Nationalist vote is decent, but not quite high enough to elect a third candidate. All in all East Londonderry is one of the Alliance’s better chances for a gain in a seat they don’t currently have representation in. The big danger, however, is that, in McClarty, there is a figure who may drag off some of the Alliance vote (in particular, liberal Protestants who feel alienated from the DUP and the UUP).

All in all, seemingly ‘average’ East Londonderry could actually be one of the most interesting constituencies on the night.