A guest blog by Faha
(All maps may be accessed on the Boundary review website here -BD )
The Westminster UK Boundary Review is scheduled to resume in 2016. The previous review was suspended after the final boundaries had been determined by the 4 Boundary Commissions of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This was due to the opposition of the Liberal Democrats who initially supported the conditions under which the Boundary Review was to take place. After the Conservative Party was unwilling to support reform of the House of Lords the Liberal Democrats withdrew their support for implementing the new boundaries for the 2015 Westminster election. The legislation was changed so that review was postponed but had to be completed by 2018. There is also a provision that the review will be based on the December 1st 2015 parliamentary electoral register. David Cameron and the Conservative Party have announced that they will proceed with the review and that the number of seats will be decreased from 650 down to 600. This was the basis of the previous review and Northern Ireland was to lose 2 of its 18 seats and was allocated 16 MP’s. The previous Northern Ireland review was completed and these were the final boundaries that were proposed (see attached map). The major changes were that the South Belfast constituency was abolished and the wards were divided up among Belfast East, Belfast West and Strangford. East Derry was also dramatically altered with the Coleraine urban area transferred to North Antrim and the remainder of East Derry merged with the entire Magherafelt district council as well some wards from Cookstown district council into the newly named Glenshane constituency. The electoral result would have been the loss of the SDLP MP for South Belfast and the defeat of the current DUP MP Gregory Campbell. The new Glenshane constituency would have a combined unionist vote of less than 40%.
Existing Boundaries
The 600 seats will be allocated based on the December 1st 2015 parliamentary electoral register. This register was 46,354,197 at the time of the May Westminster election and approximately 1,240,000 were on the Northern Ireland register. A constituency can only vary by +/- 5% from the average per constituency. Special exceptions were made for 4 constituencies in the Isle of Wight, the western isles of Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland islands. With 600 constituencies and a total electorate of 46,354,197 the average per constituency would be 77,257. Based on the Northern Ireland electorate, Northern Ireland would be allocated exactly 16 seats. It appears Northern Ireland will lose 2 seats as it did in the previous review. Or would it???
There is a new complicating factor that did not exist in the previous review. Since that time Individual Electoral Registration (IER) has been introduced to Scotland, England and Wales and the previous Household registration was phased out. IER was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2002. During the implementation of IER in the rest of the UK 1,900,000 who were on the register during the era of Household registration did not register under IER. However, they were still included on the electoral register in order to be given more time to register under IER. Any who had not registered under IER were to be removed by December 2016. In July 2015, the Conservative Party announced that this date would be moved up to December 1st 2015 in order to coincide with the December 1st date that will be used for the Boundary Review. This announcement created some controversy, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats claiming these 1.9 million will be disenfranchised. A Conservative Party spokesman stated that these 1.9 million had been contacted up to 9 times and still had not registered under IER. It is likely that most of those 1.9 million will not register under IER and will be dropped from the electoral register prior to the compilation of the December 1st register. This was what occurred when IER was introduced to Northern Ireland in 2002. The 2001 electoral register contained 1,198,000 people and when IER was introduced the number decreased to 1,072,000 in 2002. That was a loss of 10% of the electorate. Why the dramatic decrease? There are many reasons why these individuals did not register under IER but were registered under Household registration such as:
- They were dead
- They had emigrated to a foreign country or were attending a university abroad
- They were double registered (students who were registered at both a home and university address)
- They were not capable of registering due to a medical condition (dementia, severe autism, etc.)
- They were in prison
- They had absolutely no interest in politics and refused to register. These people may have been included on the household register since the head of household listed them but as individuals they will not register.
Based on the history of IER in Northern Ireland I believe that most of those 1.9 million will be dropped from the electoral register and the December 1st electoral register could be less than 45,000,000. The average per constituency may be less than 75,000. Thus, the number of seats allocated to Northern Ireland could be higher depending on what the final number on the Northern Ireland register is on December 1st. I estimate that another 25,000 voters would increase the Northern Ireland total to 17 and another 65,000 would increase the total to 18. There are approximately 140,000 people in Northern Ireland who are eligible to be on the parliamentary register who are not currently registered. This estimate is based on the 2011 census, excluding EU nationals (most who are not eligible)
Proposed Boundaries
One would expect that all the Northern Ireland political parties would desire more MP’s for Northern Ireland and would mount a major voter registration drive to increase the number of voters on the electoral register. This motivation would vary by political party and I will explain why. It has to do with the electoral implications of 16 seats versus 17 or 18.
The UUP have the strongest incentive to increase the number of voters on the electoral register. They would likely lose both their MP’s with 16 seats. Fermanagh South Tyrone was to expand to include the old Torrent DEA which is almost 90% nationalist and part of the Killyman ward (95% unionist) was to be transferred to Upper Bann. With these boundaries the nationalist vote would increase 4% and the unionist vote decrease by 4%. That would amount to a shift of 4,000 votes and since Tom Elliot only won by 530 votes SF would have easily won if the election had been contested on the new proposed boundaries. The UUP MP in South Antrim would also be in danger of defeat with only 16 constituencies since it was proposed that South Antrim be altered so that Ballymena town and surrounding wards would be added. This is strong DUP territory with the DUP vote 3 times that of the UUP. Since Danny Kinahan won by less than 1,000 votes in the current South Antrim he would have lost if the election had been contested under the new proposed boundaries. The UUP have a very strong incentive to increase the number of MP’s in Northern Ireland to 18 so they can contest the next election on the current boundaries.
The DUP also have a strong incentive to increase the number of voters on the electoral register so that Northern Ireland has 18 MP’s. It is true that South Antrim would revert to the DUP if there were only 16 constituencies. However, the DUP would probably lose Southeast Belfast (East Belfast) if there are only 16. If you look at the proposed Southeast Belfast most of the Castlereagh East wards were removed and East Belfast was extended deep into South Belfast to include many nationalist majority wards which are also wards where Alliance has a good vote. In looking at the district council vote in 2014 the Castlereagh wards that would be removed had a 75% unionist vote with the DUP near 50% and Alliance only at 12%. The Alliance vote would have been higher in the Westminster election. The DUP won the Westminster election by 2,600 votes and it appears that the DUP vote exceeded the Alliance vote by more than 2,600 in the Castlereagh wards that would be removed. The South Belfast wards that would be added have a good Alliance vote and with even minimal tactical voting by nationalist voters Naomi Long would have won the election if the proposed boundaries were in place for the 2015 election. The DUP would also lose the seat of Gregory Campbell with only 16 MP’s so there is a strong incentive for the DUP to increase the number of voters on the register to preserve the current East Derry boundaries.
The SDLP also have a strong incentive to increase the number of constituencies to 18 in order to preserve the South Belfast constituency. There would also be a beneficial effect in the Assembly elections as constituencies such as Newry and Armagh and South Down have far too many voters and the unionist wards on the periphery that would be removed would result in a 5th nationalist MLA in both. That 5th MLA would be SDLP in both.
SF have no incentive to increase the number of voters on the register as it would be less likely that they could retake Fermanagh South Tyrone with 18 constituencies. Of course, with a possible looming Assembly election they do have an incentive to increase the number of nationalist voters on the register. However, whether there are 16 constituencies or 18 will have no effect on the number of SF MP’s that are elected with Fermanagh South Tyrone less likely with 18.
The political parties have less than 2 months to increase the number of voters on the electoral register and should be motivated to do so in order that Northern Ireland has more representation at Westminster.
"We in coming days may be" 
Interesting post. I’m supposing that a 3 seater Belfast would break down as SF in the West, possibly Alliance in East/South and DUP in the North? Or would a redrawn electoral map enhance Nationalist hopes of taking (the transformed) North Belfast seat? Regardless of the gains and losses, it would all be worth it to be rid of Gregory.
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It appears that based on the current number of voters in the Belfast wards that 18 MP’s would result in the same MP’s in the 4 Belfast constituencies. 16 or 17 would result in the loss of one Belfast constituency. With 16 or 17 East Belfast would lose the Castlereagh wards and would need to add South Belfast wards such as Wynchurch, Hillfoot, Woodstock, Ravenhill, Rosetta, Ballynafeigh, Botanic and Stranmillis. The remaining South Belfast wards within the new Belfast City boundaries would go into West (Southwest) Belfast. North Belfast would gain Highfield, Glencairn and Shankill but also at least Clonard and Falls and possibly Whiterock and Beechmount. It would also lose some unionist wards in Newtownabbey. Yes, 16 or 17 seats would increase the nationalist electorate in North Belfast and Nigel Dodds would be more likely to lose his seat in 2020. 18 is the ideal number for the DUP. Otherwise they may have no Belfast MP’s in 2020, losing one seat to Alliance and the other to SF.
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Great article. I had been thinking of this myself and glad someone put it into words. If this Individual voter registration does goes through, and 1.9 million people are removed, then that would be a total electorate of 44.4 million.
If we exclude the 4 constituencies mentioned by that is approximately 44.4 million – 32,500 (Orkney & Shetland ) – 21,700 (Na h-Eileanan Siar), 108,400 (Isle of Wight ) we are left with about 44.3 million. Divided by 596 = 74300 per constituency. That would appear to add up to approximately 16.6 seats for Narnarn. Not sure who gets to decide if we round up or round down. The electorate has increased a few thousand since May but not enough to make much difference.
As for party motivations, I think SF would have motivation, given how many bonus assembly seats unionists receive as a result of small eastern constituencies returning as many MLAS as larger ones, effectively making unionist votes in those constituencies more valuable.
The equalisation aspect will also iron out much of that.
I see no prospect for 18 seats but 17 looks like it could be a possibility which would leave a brand new map to the current one and the 2013 proposal. Really would be hard pushed to see how the 4 Belfast seats could be maintained. One has to go I think.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_Parliament_constituencies
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The current boundaries favor the unionist parties for the reasons you mentioned. Heavily unionist constituencies such as East Antrim, Strangford, North Down and East Belfast have far too few voters and would need to expand into nationalist areas. This is true whether there are 16, 17 or 18 seats. You also gave a good example in a previous post regarding Foyle. If SF and the SDLP were to add another 5,000 voters to the electoral register then Eglinton ward would be transferred to East Derry, increasing the chances for a 3rd nationalist MLA.
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The most important thing is to get as many potential Nationalist voters on the register as possible and actually getting them to turnout. If the Nationalist vote can maintain its traditional strong correlation with demographics then we will have a referendum on Irish Unity in the 2020s. The is the medium/long term view. Taking a short term view of elections to a foreign parliament is not relevant.
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Agree with that Author,
The question is how to energise the nationalist electorate to come out and vote. Is there room perhaps for a right of centre pro-reunion party that may appeal to people like Croitier who regularly comments here? (I’m thinking Fianna Fail)
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A Pro-Reunion party. now there is a phrase I have never heard before. FF, FG and Labour need to be called out on this. Do they support the reunification of Ireland or not. Any answer other than a straight yes is a ‘No’ as far as I am concerned.
We need to learn the lessons from the Scottish referendum. The SNP realised that they could not deliver an Independent Scotland on their own so they secured support from the Greens, smaller left wing parties, and different non political groups all over Scotland. The same needs to be done here. Despite their best efforts, SF will never deliver a united Ireland on their own. A rejuvenated SDLP under Colum Eastwood might show an interest, and there are many members from all political parties in the South who personally would have an Interest in a cross party, cross community, cross sector working group. We are coming up to 2016, now is the time to do something about this.
There are many things that could re-invigorate the Nationalist electorate
1. The establishment of a genuine cross section group campaigning for unity (but not for office)
2. Securing the right to vote in Presidential elections
3. Securing speaking rights for Northern representatives in Dail Eireann
4. Copy Scotland by genuinely convincing people that the Tories do not have our best interests at heart.
5. A Nationalist First Minister at Stormont might garner some extra votes
6. Parties should be actively recruiting candidates who have real clout in the community. The new batch of 20something SF councillors whose Dad’s are all ex war veterans, and have studied History and Politics at Queens are not setting the world alight.
The only way to create a United Ireland is to talk about it, and put in detail how it would work. Unionists are not going to vote for it in any great numbers, but they need to be confident that when it happens, that it is not the end of the world, and that they will enjoy the same cultural and religious rights that they deserve.
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Hi Feckitt, some good points, 4 is a given. 1 will be tricky, my own opinion, which isn’t based on much is that it won’t happen while Gerry is in charge. SF want to do it on their own terms and you can understand as they have been standing alone for a while. They really need to come to the understanding that it needs consensus. Ideally I could see the catalyst for this as a SF/FF coalition. Love it to be this year. At least a joint committee on unity. Both of them say they want it, just need them to work together. Our own worst enemies. 2 &3 absolutely agree. 5. I think is neither here nor there, and 6. I think you can’t force it. I like politics, I think I’d be rubbish at it. I’m too ready to admit I have a clue. It’s also going to be hard while we push the failed state narrative.
The other thing I have a real issue with is author32 comments and the premise of this blog. Sorry bangordub, love your writing, love the data based logic don’t necessarily disagree that it is a numbers game based on nationalist votes but we are doing a dis-service by ignoring the protestant/secular/apathetic vote. Not the unionist vote, you won’t get that in a million years but there are nearly as many protestants who could be convinced by the right argument. Also misses the catholic apathetic and the southern electorate that have been turned off Irishness by the troubles and the recent history on this island. In 69-72 folk on both sides took up arms for arguable the right reasons. They saw their families and neighbourhoods under mortal threat. Mother’s were telling their sons that something should be done. Some were nutters and it definitely got way out of hand. In saying that, we need to get a moral narrative out there that puts the troubles in it’s place for the time and move on that Ireland as is single Island state is the right thing and conversely that the occupation by England pre 1922 and currently in NI was and is wrong. When I hear Michael Martin framing unification in a narrow political narrative aimed at SF, I want to punch him.
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Hi Zig,
Appreciate your comments but the premise of the blog is that there remains a close correllation between the demographic numbers of Catholics and nationalist party voting percentages and vice versa. I appreciate that there are unicorns, republican protestants and all shades in between, there always have been and the world would be far more boring without them all!
As for Michael Martin, I’m with you all the way 😉
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We need to build a charter for unity. eg: 100 things an ordinary man or woman can do to hasten Irish unity. I thoroughly enjoy this blog and dissecting numbers, but by waiting for the numbers to stack up we are abdicating responsibility for doing something now.
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I can’t argue with your premise and data Bangordub, it’s good. Except that it is helped by the fact that nothing has really changed politically in the last 15-20yrs. If we want to move to a pro-Irish vote rather than a nationalist Catholic vote then we need to break that xy graph and do things a bit differently. I’m tired of this failed state, I want something better for my kids. I’ve shared political discussions with rhetoric driven republican socialists from Derry and West Belfast it the 80s and it wasn’t my bag. The troubles was largely a class war. There are many (especially middle class) folk on both sides that the troubles hardly affected, some it affected in a positive monetary way. They aren’t going to buy into SF’s narrative and waiting on us to shag our way to unity seems very unambitious. I’ve done my bit so far, not sure it is enough. I’ve only added 3 Gaels. I’m hoping that history will throw a kink in your graph and I’m with Feckitt, I’m not for waiting.
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Michael Martin is causing great damage but does not care as he is in FF survival mode and so the northerner is expendable once again. I can see the argument for reunification coming from the people themselves although I cannot see why political parties would pay attention unless it suits their agenda, and it does not as it would only underline their weakness if they allowed a body such as that to dictate the agenda.
The only way for nationalists to move the parties to reinvigour the drive for reunification is to tell them that you have no intention to vote for them until they show their intent.
SF has failed on Irish language, housing, Maze, UVF/UDA violence, Orange Order marches, Nationalist Holiday, Cultural Equality. and I am sure that their is more. SDLP are wish washy on just about everything. They do not deserve our support. I personally look at the 4th or 5th presentation of a Same Sex marriage proposal at Stormont and judge SF and SDLP on the fact that they have not presented and Irish Language Bill 4 or 5 times, they have not threatened the institutions they have done nothing. The are roll over nationalists.
I judge them by their actions not words.
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Hi Zig, thanks for your comments. You are right about SF standing alone and doing all the heavy lifting on Irish Unity, and I agree that there would be significant elements within the party who would be unwilling to share the unity stage with other johnny come lately parties. However SF are not the party to convince moderate or apathetic unionists on the merits of a United Ireland. That is a fact. They need to recognise this and broaden the unity movement by inviting others on board.
With regards to the premise of the Bangordub blog and the whole numbers game. In the wrong hands a demographics blog could be quite a crude thing, however this blog has always been presented in a respectful and intelligent manner.
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If the SDLP were to win North Down and East Belfast at the next Westminster election, you think a United Ireland was round the corner, correct.
Yet that’s exactly what the SNP has done with knobs on, do you see Scottish Independence?
In the end, the Scottish Independence Movement lost.
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I think we are being a bit negative, for me the best thing in statistics are identifying the hidden factories. When you identify the factors then you can start to control them. Some of the analysis on here is really interesting and I do believe that blogs like this can add shoulders to the wheel. Lessons can be learned from Scotland but it’s not predicated on them succeeding. I agree that I’d like to see the Irish language bill brought forward and make the unionist reject it, especially after Mike’s comments. But not 4&5 times. It can’t be seen to be used as a political tool. I think that SF have got a lot right. I think any margin of political success in the south will raise the issue to the fore. A broader spectrum of political choices seems an obvious key to getting the vote out, even though I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be socialist I have to accept that many Nats I come across aren’t. All that’s just opinion though and fairly worthless, need a bit of market research. You would think that between SF, SDLP and FF that there is some out there. You would think with all this big data about that political targeting is more prevalent.
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So at some election in the future the public wake up to a SF/SDLP majority which is 50% plus one in a true democracy.
And what then?
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As soon as that happens there will have to be a referendum.
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My advice regarding holding a referendum, only do so if you think you can genuinely win.
If you call it and fail you’ll be the laughing of the planet.
The Scottish one being called was more to do with placating the fundamentalist wing of the SNP.
In the end it worked out well for them, it could just as easily have ended in disaster.
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Scottish Nationalism is now in a much stronger place because of the referendum. Ok they lost, but most of the bullshit arguments that the Unionists relied on for years were proven to be nonsense.
The same could happen here. The never ending lies about 10bn per year subventions and suggesting that it would be impossible to realign services north and south will have to be investigated in depth. If a border poll was held next year, it probably would fail, but it would still bring forward the likelihood of it passing in the future.
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£10bn is rubbish. ONS figures say £700m. In a UI there would be billions in savings from the removal of duplication of services. There would be billions of extra tax revenue due to focused economic policy. http://www.endgameinulster.blogspot.ie/2015/10/northern-ireland-net-fiscal-balance.html?m=1
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author32,
From a voter point of view ‘efficiency savings’ are irrelevant – if the UK wants to fund inefficiency in Northern Ireland then that is a matter for them- currently they have given the voters consent over such inefficiencies ie they can vote to remain in the UK.
I don’t think the argument should be fought on the grounds of economics – as the UK can probably ‘afford’ Northern Ireland more than the South – and that is probably not going to change.(The EU issue may change that if the UK decides to leave – and that will change the debate on economics fundamentally)
There are many social and political reasons for a UI – and they need to highlighted – along with reassurance that peoples living standards will be(largely) maintained – and that is the ground the battle needs to be fought on.
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Let’s hear these social and political reasons. On living standards is economics. Win the economic argument first.
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author32,
re. “Win the economic argument first.”
The problem with that – is there is no guarantee you can win that argument.
The political arguments are – sense of identity, pride in difference and pride in history and believing in unity as part of building national confidence. Not having part of ‘our’ country as a small part of someone’s else country where our interests are much further down the pecking order. Not having the (good) name of Ireland involved in foreign policies we cant agree with e.g. wars.
The social arguments are largely those of culture including language and the benefits that come from achieving the national objective of unification and reducing the cultural and religious division that come from 2 jurisdictions.
The political and social benefits have to be attractive to outweigh some (possible) economic disadvantage – and if you cant persuade people of that – then unity is probably not worth striving for.
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Has anyone asked nat voters that don’t turn out why? Even why not register. My main 3 would be,
1 they (politicians) don’t do anything of significance when in power (jobs, economy etc)
2. It isn’t going to make a difference voting in Newtownabbey
3 possibly related, the candidate has no chance of winning.
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Can someone explain whether the old or new wards will be used for the new boundaries
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Charlie,
The new wards will be used for the new Westminster constituencies. The old wards will be used for the 2016 Assembly election and would also be used if there was a bye election for the current Westminster Parliament.
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Thanks Faha,
That’s interesting. It means all constituencies have to change automatically then as even some wards with the same name look radically different.
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Faha, any implications of the changes for the Councils particularly Belfast.
What was the % Nat vote at last Stormo elections – given current trends(in Nats not turning up) presumably that might be expected to slip further. There is no obvious rallying point – unless new SDLP leader injects some interest.
General feeling that SF are slipping back. Against that – DUP could be in some bother. Wondering how many DUP seats are vulnerable to Nats because of the possible revival of the UUP plus some swing to the TUV?
SF could still find themselves with the biggest vote(and the First Minister) but the overall Nat share down?
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The new wards were already in place for the Council elections in 2014. Based on the low nationalist turnout in 2014 and 2015 it appears that SF would lose an MLA in East Antrim and the SDLP would lose an MLA in West Belfast (to the DUP) and possibly one in South Belfast. If nationalist turnout equaled unionist turnout in all constituencies then there would be close to 50 nationalist MLA’s.
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Do you see anything to reverse the trend?
Problems reported for the SDLP
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/sdlp-could-lose-five-seats-in-next-assembly-elections-34178791.html
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BD,
Moriarty spakes
“If Catholicism and Protestantism were absolutely and respectively synonymous with nationalism and unionism, it could be argued a united Ireland would happen sooner rather than later. But it’s not that simple.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/why-a-united-ireland-will-not-happen-anytime-soon-1.2420460
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Yes Sammy,
I’ve read the article and interesting it was.
Of course the Quote above is the simple truth There does remain a correlation between the various “camps” and the voting results however but it is undeniable that there is an increasing unaligned vote as well as a substantial block that simply is not voting at all.
My own theory is that the under representation of nationalist voters will correct itself as the older age cohorts become gradually more nationalist inclined. (Currently the threshold is 42).
The oldies among us are, of course, the diehard voters 😉
The other issue facing nationalists is the electoral choice. That is subject for a blog to itself.
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BD,
re. “if Catholicism and Protestantism were absolutely and respectively synonymous with nationalism and unionism, it could be argued a united Ireland would happen sooner rather than later. But it’s not that simple
‘there does remain a correlation’
is not the same as
‘absolutely and respectively synonymous with nationalism and unionism’
It does seem that Religion does translate into constitutional voting intentions (Unionist or Nat parties) but that does not seem to follow through into a desire for a UI on the Nat side – which is something the pollsters really need to explore.
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The Northern Ireland Parliamentary register for November was released and the electorate is now 1,241,397 which is 2,500 more than October. 18 seats looks improbable but 17 is still possible if the political parties can add another 10,000 by December 1st.
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Faha,
Interesting that the electoral register has actually increased given the oft publicised antipathy to the current political setup. Any indications or thoughts regarding where the new voters are coming from or do you think they are mainly the new crop of 18 year olds?
2,500 seems a lot in a month representing a 1/4 of 1% rise annually
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I do not believe they are mainly 18 year olds since there has been no increase in the electoral register for the previous 4 months. The increase has been concentrated in nationalist constituencies so it probably represents the efforts of the SDLP and SF in registering new voters. It will be interesting to see if the trend occurs when the register is published in December.
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Thanks for that Faha,
It will be interesting to note if there is any increase in the nationalist voter percentages in May. I’m not aware of any particular campaigns to inrease registration – BD
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I remember the build up to the Westminster election and after an intial spike of registrants in fleggerdom the actual take up by all consitituencies was pretty high with the exception of South Belfast most likely due to large student and migrant populations. With that in mind why do nationalists bother to register but then dont bother to vote. I do understand that SF and SDLP at times are useless but its crazy not to vote.
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Do you have a link?
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http://www.eoni.org.uk/Home
Look under “Register to Vote” and go to “electorate statistics”. The ward registers go back as far as 2000.
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Very interesting that you can monitor voter registration on a monthly basis. Could be used to hold Nationalist politicians to account if they aren’t doing the work to get as many potential voters on the register as possible.
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What criteria are you using to make that assertion that 10,000 is required? We’ve no idea how well Labour is doing at registering the people who have been struck off from the old register and probably won’t know until the December registration figures are published.
The second point is that I don’t know where the line is drawn. Do they round up and down? and what is this based on.
I’ll give you an example : I was recently studying a set of numbers for the different electorates and based on the set of numbers to hand the total electorate divide by 600, excluding orkney shetland and isle of wight x 2, went something as follows (I could be a bit off):
England ~ 500.8
Scotland ~ 49.4
Wales ~ 29.4
Narnarn ~ 16.3
In this case, rounding would give
England – 501
Scotland – 49
Wales – 29
Narnarn – 16
Total – 595
How is the spare seat accounted for in this situation?
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Charlie,
You are correct that we will not know the final numbers until the December registration figures are available. I am assuming that most of those 1.9 million who have not registered under IER will not be on the register for December. Labour may be registering more people but if they are doing so they are doing it quietly since I have seen no publicity on this. Another unknown is that there could be significant numbers on the register who have emigrated since the last canvass who would also be removed. There is so much uncertainty regarding the final numbers that we will not know until a month from now. The final number of MP’s for Northern Ireland may be determined more by the decrease in the rest of the UK rather than the increase in Northern Ireland.
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Thanks Faha, although not sure that answered the question. While I accept others being removed with account for a lot more, I’m not curious on how it is decided who rounds up and who rounds down. There could even be an argument that if Narnarn has been using IER for 10 years when GB hasn’t then has been technically at a disadvantage as more people obviously get wiped off an IER register than a household one.
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1.271m in December which looks like an increase of 30k. Would be interesting to see which wards the increases come from.
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Interesting article by Andy Pollack from 2014
“Dr Paul Nolan, author of the Joseph Rowntree Trust/Community Relations Council’s superb Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Reports: “The identification of the Protestant population as the ‘majority’ no longer has empirical validity”
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There’s one aspect to this conversation that I feel is worth exploring, namely the likely party strength within the Assembly on a 5 MLA and 16 constituency basis. An assembly compliment of 80 members.
This is the probable grounds on which the 2021 elections will be fought. At very least I think it needs to thought about and factored in.
At that time the PoC measure will be 30 out of 80.
The present combined nationalist strength within the current strength is 41.4%. On an extremely simplistic basis this equates to 33 seats.
The position of 33 seats within the 2021 assembly is too close to 30 PoC threshold to be comfortable. Given this margin an analysis of a worst case scenario would be prudent. The aim is to ensure it is avoided. So therefore…:
It is very hard to avoid the impression that nationalists are switching off in ever greater numbers ore from politics. Recent events are very likely to acerbate that disengagement and disillusionment.
SF have been thoroughly defeated in the latest negotiations without so much as a fig leaf being offered by the British/Irish/DUP alliance to cover their embarrassment. They have achieved nothing out of these talks.
The SDLPNI have seemingly decided to be house-trained and opted for an internal solution, nationalist ideals are on the back seat and heading for the boot to be hid under the dirty rugby shirts. In New Labour fashion they speak reassuring noises whilst shifting their fundamental ground. The ‘Third Way’ versus ‘Progressive Nationalism’. A supporting cast professional party staffers who live in their own ‘progressive’ bubble being the champios and guardians. The donning of a NI shirt was no aberration, or mistake, it was manifestation of this thinking. Their trajectory is one of a lime green ‘letsgetalongerist’ party. Sorry Fitz.
The brutal truth is SF (and SDLPNI) have achieved very little for the nationalist people; everything is blocked or stymied, vague promises that mean nothing, and apparent action by way of diversionary talking-shops & committees. All of which is accompanied by an ever present British/owc propaganda propagated by the local media. Irishness is a personal matter and parity of esteem is dead.
It takes no great thought to anticipate the SF vote will suffer at the next election and nothing much will change that will invigorate the base or prompt a recovery.
The SDLPNI may get some bounce at the next election, benefiting from a protest vote against SF, will pick up some returning Alliance voters and will hope to be transfer friendly for UUP votes if only to keep SF out. By 2021 the position of the SDLPNI as a letgetalongerist party will be confirmed and then they will discover that nationalists will react by withholding their vote.
By 2021 there is the real prospect of further decline in the nationalist vote. The assembly and politics will be seen as not delivering, of little use for nationalists of any persuasion. Who vote and who is there to vote for anyway.
The worst case scenario for the nationalist people is falling short of the PoC threshold. Is it so unimaginable?
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We will have a reasonably good idea of what the 2021 Assembly results will be a year from now. The May 2016 results and the proposed new boundaries will be available to give a rough estimate. Alliance introduced a proposal in the Assembly yesterday to reduce the number of MLA’s to 5 per constituency for 2016 but I do not know if there was a vote. The PoC has been used often by the DUP and some would claim it has been abused. If the nationalist bloc had less than 30 MLA’s in your scenario the nationalist Deputy First Minister still has a veto.
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The detailed allocation method is prescribed by the 2011 legislation. It is only approximately the same as dividing the electorate (excluding the voters in the island areas outside the normal rules) by 596.
I interpret these rules as allocating using the Sainte-Laguë method. The process is repeated until all available seats are allocated, so no rounding up or down is necessary.
“The allocation method
8(1)The allocation method referred to in rule 3(2) is as follows.
(2)The first constituency shall be allocated to the part of the United Kingdom with the greatest electorate.
(3)The second and subsequent constituencies shall be allocated in the same way, except that the electorate of a part of the United Kingdom to which one or more constituencies have already been allocated is to be divided by—
2C+1
where C is the number of constituencies already allocated to that part.
(4)Where the figure given by sub-paragraph (3) above is the same for two or more parts of the United Kingdom, the part to which a constituency is to be allocated shall be the one with the smaller or smallest actual electorate.
(5)This rule does not apply to the constituencies mentioned in rule 6, and accordingly—
(a)the electorate of England shall be treated for the purposes of this rule as reduced by the electorate of the constituencies mentioned in rule 6(1);
(b)the electorate of Scotland shall be treated for the purposes of this rule as reduced by the electorate of the constituencies mentioned in rule 6(2)”.
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The UK boundary commission released the ward voter registration statistics today for the revised electoral registers for December 2015. The decline for the UK as a whole decreased over 1.5 million but Northern Ireland increased by several thousand. Northern Ireland was allocated 17 seats which is an improvement over the 16 in the previous review in 2011. It looks as if the new Belfast city boundaries have exactly enough voters for 3 seats so it appears that the one lost seat will come from the Belfast constituencies. I will go into more detail with a new post when more information is available.
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I agree Belfast losing a seat looks most likely.
However there are clear areas that could move into an expanded four seat Belfast.
Newtonabbey, Holywood and Derryaghy south are possibilities.
However the other seats would still need some serious rejigging. The west tyrone seats and eastern unionist dominated seats are all way off quota. It would probably mean anchoring around newry and armagh and upper bann as they are above quota and shift wards mostly in an anti-clockwise fashion.
I think 17 seats is likely to o ly hurt alasdair mcdonnell at Westminster. But nationalists would probably gain at assembly level.
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Looks like bad news for SDLP: South Belfast will disappear and divide up into West Belfast and East Belfast, and SF will hold their seat. East Belfast will get parts of South Belfast making it a little more likely to go from DUP to Alliance.
Shankill will go to North Belfast, helping DUP.
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Are we still on course for East Ferry to disappear, leaving Gregory with only curried yoghurt to console him?
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East Derry, even. Doh!
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We don’t know yet as only number of allocated seats has been determined. No one has begun to redraw the maps. However Gregorys seat would need a boost of wards from somewhere to bring it up to quota. North Antrim would be somewhat obvious target except that East Antrim is so small it would need plenty of wards from north and south antrim. Therefore I can see some foyle wards like Eglinton and Enagh moving into Gregorys seat and pushing up the nationalist share slightly. We have to wait and see, but given we now know the seat allocation and the the electorates used are from December 2015 you can already try and come up with something.
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Having just looked at it again, even with 17 seats all 5 western seats are below quota with only Foyle and FST above 70,000. Given that FST has a county boundary I don’t see it receiving wards from the ‘ward pool’ of N&A and UB. Therefore the only other was to receive wards is from excessive knocking on in the other direction. Belfast wold have to contract sharply to three with plenty of East belfast wards going into North down like in 1995 and as much of North belfast and the old lagan valley being transferred north to the antrim seats. Seeing as NA is a mere 2000 above quota now and the other antrim seats below quota first , they will need to be boosted by freed up belfast wards in order for North Antrim to pass on some wards westward. The only other alternative is the western seats reduce to 4, and this a massive effort to get every conceivable Belfast commuter to join a new belfast seat.
Will be much wailing and knashing of teeth.
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I forgot that Narnarn gets a larger leeway for equalisation than other constituencies. Therefore it seems possible that probably three constituencies could be carved out of the new Belfast City Council boundaries. If this was the case I actually think it is possible to placate both nationalist parties.
The SDLP can complain about losing their seat but at last than a quarter of the vote and even a small tactical squeeze in their favour it was never really a citadel to begin with. In fact, by avoiding really republican West belfast wards and really unionist east belfast wards it’s pretty much as favourable as it can be.
Having said that three seats in Belfast could provide a reasonable recourse for the party. By my quick and dirty sums:
A north Belfast seat would have to have the 63000 voters of Castle old park and court plus around 8-10,000 of the black mountain voters leading to SF being clear favourites although still a significant unionist bloc.
A south west seat would include the remainder of black mountain and the collins Balmoral and botanic districts. SF are well ahead here too but the SDLP could have tactical potential here as compensation. The SDLPs other hub of votes in the constituency is the Carryduff area which is not in the council area and so they lose that unless they are somehow shoe horned in. Leaving the remainder to go into east belfast to create an Alliance-DUP competitive seat.
SF would likely win two seats here but if SF were to field someone like Masked against Claire Hanna they might get a shock at how many people won’t just automatically go SF like they used to. It’s in the SDLPs court to win some votes back.
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I find it hard to figure out how things will look, there are a lot of constraints from the fact that all constituencies have to fall between certain limits, so there will be a knock on effect everywhere. I do think that South Belfast will go but exactly how the constituencies look in the end is hard to say.
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Charlie could you imagine a Belfast with 2 SF and one Alliance MP’s the DUP would have a fit. The boundary comission are going to have a few difficult decisions to make expect fireworks and gerrymandering accusations galore.
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The dice would have to land a particular way to get 2 SF in Belfast. Possible but depends what way they adjust North Belfast.
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It would be great if after the next election SF had two in Belfast and got FST back.
Then SF would have 6 to 8 out of 17
WT
MU
NB
WB
NA
FST
and perhaps
ED
UB
and SDLP only two… F and SD.
Pretty amazing for SF I would say.
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Boundary Commission: http://www.boundarycommission.org.uk/index/2018-review-bcni-news-release.pdf
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