Detailed Map of new constituency is here
Part 2 of Faha’s analysis of the new DEA’s
This 2nd analysis of the new district councils will cover the new Mid Ulster council, which encompasses all of the current Magherafelt, Cookstown and Dungannon councils. The new DEA’s bear little resemblance to the old DEA’s. The current Blackwater DEA has been divided up between the Clogher Valley and Dungannon Town DEA’s. Both the Torrent and Magherafelt DEA’s have added wards from Cookstown. The shapes of some of the DEA’s are quite odd with the new Cookstown DEA extending from Lough Neagh to Pomeroy and the new Moyola DEA from Lough Neagh to Draperstown. There were many alternative ward groupings proposed to the Boundary Commission but none were adopted. In the 2005 and 2011 district council elections the nationalist and unionist voting turnout was as follows
For the current Magherafelt and Cookstown DEA’s the data reveales some obvious conclusions:
#1 Turnout dropped dramatically between the 2005 and 2011 elections.For the current Magherafelt and Cookstown DEA the data shows some obvious conclusions.
#2 Turnout is higher in rural areas than the towns.
#3 Nationalist turnout is higher than unionist turnout in Magherafelt council but lower in Cookstown council. The current Dungannon DEA had the following results.
The current Dungannon DEA is as follows:
The Data above shows:
#1 Unionist and nationalist turnout was identical in 2005
#2 Unionist turnout decreased slightly between 2005 and 2011
#3 There was a total collapse of nationalist turnout between 2005 and 2011. Another 4,000 nationalist voters would have had to vote to equal unionist turnout. For each DEA the party vote change from 2005 to 2011 was:
The SF vote declined steeply in Torrent-these voters stayed at home. It also declined steeply in Dungannon Town but these SF voters defected to an independent nationalist. The SDLP vote was down but not as much as SF. How could the total nationalist vote be up in Blackwater but the turnout declined from 76% to 49%? An explanation of the census data is needed. Between 2001 and 2011 there was a large in migration of foreign nationals into Dungannon Town. Indeed they now account for 30% of the adult population (and 20% of the December 2013 electoral register). In turn, some of the native Catholic and Protestant population has moved to the rural wards of Blackwater, Torrent and even Clogher Valley. Also, there no longer appears to be any emigration of native Catholics in these DEA’s so there has been a large increase in the Catholic electorate. However, they do not vote. This can be seen most dramatically in the Clogher Valley DEA. The 2011 census showed 3806 voting age Protestants and 4835 voting age Catholics and 188 Other/None. Despite over 1000 more Catholic voters the unionist vote total exceeded the nationalist vote total 2885 to 2829 and the unionist parties won 3 of the 5 seats. Some of the nationalist voter deficit in Dungannon Town can be attributed to the lower voter turnout among ethnic nationals (at least 75% are Catholic and most of the remainder Other/None) but even taking this into account the native Catholic turnout is probably 10% less than the unionist turnout.
The new DEA’s have the following voting age demographics. The number of councilors to be elected and quota is in parenthesis.
On 2011 turnout, in the new Clogher Valley DEA, the nationalist parties will poll less than the unionist parties despite 760 more potential voters. They would barely poll 43%, which is 3 quotas. If nationalist turnout declines more, then there will be 4 unionist seats.
The SDLP missed out on a seat in Dungannon Town in 2011, 75 votes behind the DUP. There were 52 SDLP and 43 Alliance votes that transferred to no one. Ethnic nationals make up 25% of the voting age population (15% of the December 2013 electoral register). Whichever nationalist party is willing to register and target the ethnic nationals could take a seat from the DUP. Based on the new boundaries and a 2011 turnout the new council would be expected to have:
SF 19 SDLP 6 Nationalist 1 UUP 6 DUP 8
There could be 1 more SDLP seat and 1 less DUP if nationalist turnout increases by 5% in Dungannon.
In 2011 the combined Cookstown, Dungannon and Magherafelt councils elected 54 councilors:
SF 23 SDLP 9 Nationalist 1 UUP 9 DUP 12
The new council will elect 40 councilors and it appears that there will be 7 fewer unionist and 7 fewer nationalist councilors. It could be 8 fewer unionist and 6 fewer nationalist depending on nationalist turnout in Dungannon DEA
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"We in coming days may be" 
We know that the over 45’s tend to be more active voters Faha and this new super council area has a higher age profile than say, Belfast.
It may therefore be argued that change will coming dripping slower in an area such as this.
Taking on board your argument regarding the Dungannon DEA, are there local reasons for this such as weak candidate choice or local antipathy to a particular party? What would you think are the reasons behind this as they are not reflected across the entire area?
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I do not have a good answer. There was a competitive Westminster election the same day in 2005 so this may have stimulated a high turnout. This would not explain the collapse of the SF vote in Torrent, which is in Mid Ulster. There was a Stormont election the same day in 2011 and I believe disillusion with the Assembly is affecting nationalist voters, especially SDLP. The Stormont government, with mandatory power sharing, is not a form of government that would encourage turnout. For voters that are marginally interested in the election, it makes no difference whether you vote or not. If you vote, Peter Robinson will be First Minister. If you do not vote, Peter Robinson will be First Minister. So for a nationalist voter who despises the DUP and everything it stands for, your vote makes no difference. Peter Robinson is “President for Life” and you cannot vote him out of office. Even if he were Deputy First Minister, he would still have an absolute veto over any legislation. If there was no mandatory power sharing, nationalist voter turnout would be higher than unionist turnout because not voting would result in a unionist majority at Stormont, and we all know from history what that would entail. Nationalist voters would vote in huge numbers to prevent a unionist majority, because not voting would be a disaster for the nationalist community. The results would be a Stormont with the Alliance party holding the balance of power, similar to the current Belfast City council. The DUP would not have a veto as it currently does.
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Excellent points Faha. I suspect that many Nationalists are biding time until mid-2020’s when there will then be an electoral Nationalist majority.
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As disussed in the previous thread, the SDLP are in disarray in F-ST generally following the decision to oppose Gildernew in the face of a ‘unionist unity’ candidate, but not in such bad shape in Mid-Ulster where Patsy McGlone is their man.
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Today’s debacle involving the new SDLP candidate for South Belfast won’t have helped. Declaring himself an “economic unionist” on the basis of a very tenuous grasp of economics may help in that constituency but I imagine it may create some problems down mid ulster and fermanagh.
The article is below but Imagine the mainstream media will be having fun with this by tomorrow: http://bartoncreeth.com/2014/02/09/in-profile-justin-cartwright-sdlp-council-candidate-for-balmoral/
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Heh, I wonder what fitzjameshorse would say?
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Bangordub,
It’s just one guy though. I think it’s a bit refreshing although probably helps if he comes and clarifies that his ultimate aspiration is the reunification of the country.
I think the SF reaction from Gerry Kelly is a bit pathetic though. Jumping on twitter and going after an Australian for basically trying to have a grown up debate. It was like “Aww aww teacher did you hear what he said? I’m telling! ” Constitutional nationalists in Balmoral already have two well known names in Claire Hanna and Bernie Kelly. If Justin is there is a 3rd candidate then he may attract a different sort of voter. If not, then what harm. Unionist vote is plummeting in Balmoral. We talk of nationalist turnout being low elsewhere but here, the demographics still have slightly more P’s (44%) and yet only 35% voted unionist last time out.
FF,
Fitzjameshorse has already been on twitter saying he’s not too happy I think.
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Its an opinion fair play to him but he is sounding more like an Alliance candidate.He may be trying to appeal to the very pale green/yellow electorate of South Belfast but Im pretty sure they would vote for Alliance first anyway. One other point why does the SDLP have 3 candidates they will only get 2 seats at best. Yes one more candidate may attract some non voters out but at the same time votes could be lost with poor transferring.
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well in 2005 they actually got over 33 % and Sinn Fein got about 10% so if each candidate had balanced that year on 11% each then perhaps they could have soaked up all the SF transfers and got elected. They probably anticipated that having an incumbent like McDonnell as MP and the changing SB electorate three would be an even surer thing this time round. Rather they went backwards to 29%. SF taking u p the slack to move over 14% and onto a full quota. This year I have no idea what they are doing. Claire Hanna is quite popular and also running there (and who knows the next mayor) and Martin O Muilleoir is the current lord mayor and may grow his own vote as a result. So hard to say how this will effect things.
This ward certainly has some high profile councillors as well as the people mentioned who have had generally good years, this is also the ward of Ruth Patterson. In most places fantasising about a massacre is career suicide but round the Village it could actually get her more votes due to the fucked up way things work here.
There is also boundary changes in Balmoral; Sandy row is crudely amputated from the Shaftesbury ward to be in beside it’s ol’ loyalist mucker the Village. Apart from that I don’t see any other boundaries changed in Balmoral. So with a few more unionists shoehorned in, an as-you-were result (2 SDLP, 1 All, 1 SF, 1 DUP, & 1 UUP) would probably be a good result.
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Faha,
some excellent detail here. Would it be fair to say that of the 2 councils you have done there is no political controversy surrounding the boundary changes and no political changes – or is that too simple a summary?
In relation to “Indeed they now account for 30% of the adult population (and 20% of the December 2013 electoral register”
Is there any handle on how and if these guys get classified in the census in terms of National Identity – or can we infer it?
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Sammy,
As far as I know there was no controversy regarding the boundaries for these 2 councils, except that the SDLP and UUP wanted a 15 council model and SF initially supported the 7 council proposal. The ethnic nationals usually classify their national identity as that if their native country. Interestingly, there were recent threats in Dungannon Town directed against landlords renting to foreign nationals and SF and the independent councilors came to the defense of the ethnic nationals. Obviously, they are targeting these communities come election time.
I do not put much faith in the national identity question. The census office did a follow up survey of a sample of people who completed census form to determine the consistency of response for all census questions. The consistency of response was very high ( >95% ) for most questions. For national identity it was not. Half the people who gave their national identity as Northern Irish in their initial census form gave a different national identity 3 months later ! It was better for British and Irish but even many of those changed their answer.
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Faha,
thanks for that – any link to the census follow-up lying around?
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Sammy,
You can find it on the NISRA site. It is called the census quality survey. Hard to find but if you type in CQS under search it will take you to this link. http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/census/2011/census_quality_survey.pdf
The information I mentioned above is on page 44. There is also some fascinating data on the religion question. Some people who checked off None as their religion in the census stated they did have a religion in the follow up survey.
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Faha, thanks for that.
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Interesting analysis. The comments on the sdlp vote in FST compared to McGlone in Mid Ulster dont really ring through. In the last by-election McGlone increased vote but by only a couple fo hundred. he didnt make any inroads to the SF vote. not really a great show for one of the SDLPs leading figures. He only just scraped above their lowest result to date. Also in Torrent, while the SF vote may have dropped (with various independents in the field) they still managed to hold four of the six seats comfortably.
This election will be interesting and could present the sdlp in Mid Ulster with some scary results.
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The SDLP may not have fared stupendously well in Mid-Ulster but their vote did not collapse to anything near the extent it did in Fermanagh & South Tyrone and I think the figures bear that out.
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How much is the SDLP’s hit in FST down to the fact the unionist candidate coerced people into voting Sinn Fein who normally wouldn’t be crazy about the idea where as SDLP voters in Mid Ulster have never had such worries and are happy to support a decent candidate like McGlone?
It seems whoever gets their nose in front can stay there. Since SF won back WB in 1997, they have continued to soak up more and more support. The SDLP won South Belfast and only die hard SF voters remain allergic to McDonnell, the rest will back him with all the ‘unionist unity’ nonsense ringing in their ears.
McGuinness won Mid Ulster in 1997 due to the factors that: the new boundaries placed not just more nationalists into the new constituency, but specifically collected together republican areas like South Derry, East Tyrone and Coalisland. Also the platform sharing William McCrea shared with King Rat, said to the SDLP voters : You be best to at least elect our terrorist than their terrorist. Since that Win, those voters have been reluctant to let the seat slip back into the hands of a unionist even though they attempted a unionist unity candidate again last year with Nigel Lutton.
N& A is the only exception but even their Seamus Mallon held on for years when he first won it from Jim Nicholson, and Eddie Mcgrady like him in South Down winning from Enoch Powell. The problem is, once they lost a high profile figure, as well as a republican SDLP figure like Mallon, they lost a bundle of votes, but Dominic Bradley seems to be winning people back there, and it is one of the more realistic chances of an SDLP gain.
Interesting that in the Euros SF are running a candidate from the main SDLP heartland (Martina Anderson in Derry) and the SDLP are running a candidate from the main SF heartland (Attwood in Belfast). Do these local ties ever really mean much? And if they do, should they?
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BD could you ping me an e-mail?
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Done
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Happy Valentines Day all! I trust you are all slaving over a nice marinated Steak
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Is that Marina Ginestà in the banner? Iconic image.
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Yes it is!
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love the new pic! turning round and moving forward!
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10% of the vote needed to do some damage as an independent, nearly worth a try. NI21 are non stop trying to get a decent community leader to join the ranks, apparently they have 1 in Dungannon.
Ind republicans might come back onto the scene, maybe not enough to break down the SF majority but defiantly scope to make the vote interesting for a change.
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