I like to track the winners of the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize because of my own past association with it, and was really interested to see that earlier this month it went to a book of poetry, The Sun is Open, by QUB-based writer Gail McConnell. In fact the 119 pages of text are one long poem broken into chunks, playing with text and with font colour, processing the writer’s reaction to going through a box of her father’s things, long after he died in 1984 at 35, shot dead by the IRA while checking under his car for bombs, in front of his wife and his then three-year-old daughter.
Gail McConnell barely remembers her father and has no memory of that awful day, but of course it has affected her whole life, and the poetry captures that disruption and the effect of engaging with her father through a box of personal souvenirs, most notably a diary and a Students Union handbook from his own time at QUB. There is some incredible playing with structure – quotations from the box are in grey text, documents are quoted in fragments to let us fill in the blanks, at one point the page fills with vertical bars to symbolise the prison where her father worked. It’s provocative and unsettling, and meant to be. You can get it here.
This moved me to seek out an earlier poem by Gail McConnell, Type Face, which you can read here. It’s funnier, though the humour is rather dark; the theme is that it explains her reaction to reading the Historical Enquiries Team report into her father’s murder, and discovering that it was written in Comic Sans. The third verse is:
‘Nothing can separate me from the Love of God in Christ Jesus Our Lord’. Nothing can, indeed. I am guided by Google, my mother by Christ. Awake most nights, I click and swipe. I search and find Bill McConnell Paint and Body. Under new management!!!!! Northeast Tennessee. Where is God in a Messed-up World? Inside the Maze. (My phone flashes up a message like a muse.) Straight & Ready: A History of the 10th Belfast Scout Group. (35) (PO) (IRA) – for more and a photograph, push this link>> the maroon death icon on CAIN.ulst.ac.uk You visited this page on 06/02/15. And here I am again. And in The Violence of Incarceration (Routledge, 2009), eds. Phil Scraton and Jude McCulloch (page thirty-three), he ‘oversaw, but later denied in court, the brutality of prison guards, [and] was executed by the IRA on the 8 March 1984.’ (He’d been dead two days by then.) Execute. Late Middle English: from Latin exsequi ‘follow up, punish’. There’s a listing on victims.org.uk, ‘an [sic] non-sectarian, non-political’ nook complete with Union Jack and Ulster flag campaigning pics, the Twitter feeds and tags, a calendar and videos. Powered by WordPress. And then there’s Voices from The Grave (and this one’s hard to bear, though can I say so? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.) I won’t write down the page. But something in me, seeing that crazed portrait – something’s relieved.
Really good stuff, and very different in presentation from The Sun is Open. Both are recommended.
It’s been a while since I have written at length about Brexit, but the most recent developments have driven me to put some electrons together on the topic. By way of introduction, I participated in a televised manel discussion on Al-Jazeera on Wednesday with Duncan Morrow of Ulster University and Graham Gudgin from Cambridge, which you can watch here:
Also very importantly, the excellent Brexit Witness archive has published a wide-ranging interview with Andrew McCormick, one of the best of the mandarins in the Northern Ireland Civil Service. I do recommend reading the whole thing, but Tony Connelly of RTE has published a summary here.
The other recent development, of course, is the Northern Ireland Assembly election. I wrote about the raw numbers last weekend; there is some necessary analysis which will come now.
It seems however that this only slowly dawned on Whitehall after the referendum result. When the EU insisted that citizenship rights, financial obligations and arrangements on the Irish border should be sorted out as part of the divorce deal, the British initially found the first two much more difficult to swallow. Many in London seemed to believe that Chancellor Merkel of Germany would tell the Irish to accept whatever deal suited the British for the sake of future car exports, thus completely misunderstanding the weight of individual member states in the EU system, not to mention the politics of the German car industry.
Part of the myth spread by Brexit secretary David Davis is that the Irish government drastically hardened its line on sorting out the border when Leo Varadkar took over from Enda Kenny as Taoiseach in 2017. Again, this is untrue, but I categorise it as a misunderstanding rather than a lie; what actually happened in 2017 was that the UK actually started paying attention to the fact that Dublin had a view (to say that London was actually listening would be a step too far).
There is no need to rehearse at length the agony of Theresa May, who eventually realised that the hard Brexit to which she had committed herself at the start of the process would be disastrous if implemented on the Irish border, but failed to take her party with her, let alone the DUP. Johnson, having replaced her as Prime Minister with the help of the DUP, then (to my surprise) agreed a deal with Leo Varadkar including a special status for Northern Ireland which became the Protocol.
To remind you: the Protocol keeps Northern Ireland inside the EU’s single market and customs union, in order to avoid customs checks on the land border. But since the UK has “taken back control”, this inevitably means that somewhere there must be customs and other checks on goods which might travel from the rest of the UK to the EU, and if the Border is to remain open, that means that those checks take place in the Irish Sea, between England, Scotland and Wales to the east, and Ireland and Northern Ireland to the West. The great sitcom Parlement spoofed these discussions rather well:
The question is, how did we end up with a situation where Boris Johnson claimed to have an “oven-ready” deal with the EU before the 2019 election, and now repudiates the Northern Ireland Protocol, one of the core planks of that deal? The UK government’s defenders make various arguments. Some say that the EU has been too tough in implementing the rules (which in fact have not yet been implemented in any meaningful sense). Some (including the then UK chief negotiator, David Frost) say that the deal was negotiated too quickly (after three and a half years, which does not really seem too short a time to prepare).
The UK now threatens to unilaterally disapply the Protocol starting next week, provoking a trade war with the EU at precisely the moment that the West needs to be united in support of Ukraine. It is alleged that the new arrangements have made life worse in Northern Ireland (though the government’s own economists report that thanks to the Protocol, Northern Ireland’s economy is outperforming the rest of the UK’s). The EU is blamed for creating the trade barriers which the UK demanded and agreed to. The UK, now keen to sign trade agreements with the rest of the world, is about to tear up its biggest agreement, with its closest and largest trading partner. Not hugely smart.
Why do this? I ask again. My view is that Conservatives in general, who are genuinely and deeply emotionally attached to the Union, cannot bear the thought of implementing a trade and customs frontier inside the UK. Johnson assured them in 2019 that it would be all right, no matter what might actually be written in the deal, and they believed him, despite his track record with the truth. So I predict that the Johnson government, however long it lasts, will not implement the Protocol in any meaningful way.
On top of that, the consequences of fighting with the EU are largely positive for the Conservatives. It keeps Brexit going and puts Labour in a difficult position. Sure, there are economic consequences, but they are lost in the static of post-pandemic recovery and the effects of the war in Ukraine, and will be most felt in Northern Ireland where the Conservatives do not stand anyway. Few Conservatives care about the damage to the UK’s international reputation – they are all foreigners, after all. The strategy is in fact to fight rather than to win.
There is very little appetite in Brussels, Dublin or other capitals to give the British what they currently say they want. This goes right back to the early days of Brexit, when the EU was very alert to the potential for the UK to undermine the Single Market. In addition, the UK’s July 2021 Command Paper on the Protocol ambitiously rewrote the recent history of the relationship to an extent that was unrecognisable outside Westminster and further undermined trust. The tactics of escalation have failed to convince other capitals that the British are serious about finding solutions. It’s also noticeable that the current escalation is coming from the UK Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, who clearly has ambitions to be the next Conservative leader, an election that must come sooner or later, and also needs to put her own previous pro-Remain baggage behind her.
How do we know this is a problem…well a former Defra secretary — one @trussliz warned of this in the 2016 referendum campaign in an article for @Vet_Record /12 pic.twitter.com/2isrikJqkM
The actual situation on the ground in Northern Ireland is barely relevant to Conservative decision-making. The DUP do have an outsized influence with the Tories because they have the largest delegation at Westminster, and their MPs are well networked with the Conservative back-benchers; Sinn Fein are not there at all, the SDLP have only two MPs, one of whom is the party leader, and Alliance have only one, who is the party’s deputy leader. But one should not exaggerate this factor; it did not help the DUP when the 2019 deal was passed, over their loud objections about the Protocol.
So, the last part of this post is about Northern Ireland, where the DUP last week paid the price at the ballot box for their strategic mistakes of the last few years. I wrote briefly about Arlene Foster’s leadership when she resigned; it’s worth adding that the DUP’s pledge to punish the Northern Ireland institutions, by not allowing a government to be formed until the Protocol has gone, has a real whiff of Blazing Saddles. Yes, it is a functional political problem that Unionists as a whole do not accept the Protocol; but Stormont has very little to do with that, and Westminster is where the battle actually is. (Unlike almost everyone else, I’m therefore actually rather sympathetic to Jeffrey Donaldson’s stated intention to remain an MP for the time being.)
That brings us to the other side of the DUP’s policy choices. There is a very strong perception among non-Unionists that the real reason that the DUP do not want to reinstate the Northern Ireland Executive is that Sinn Fein would get the position of First Minister, thanks to the rewriting of the rules at the behest of the DUP in 2007. Personally, I share that perception, though I will be glad to be proved wrong. If I am right that the UK government is about to escalate the situation with the EU, we will soon see if the DUP is actually prepared to accept the result of an election that it did not win. (For more on the election, see the very interesting analysis by Lee Reynolds.)
The DUP is under threat from Jim Allister’s Traditional Unionist Voice, which snatched a quarter of their 2017 votes away on 5 May (though remarkably failed to win any seats); Allister is very clear that Sinn Fein should not be allowed in government at all, and that the DUP would be stooges for enabling them to lead it, and the voters who defected to him from the DUP presumably feel the same. But if Northern Ireland is to have a long term future at all as a society, power-sharing is essential – as my father recommended in 1971.
A brief personal parenthesis: Both Jim Allister (when he was an MEP) and Sir Jeffrey Donaldson (when he was a member of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly) have been personally helpful to me in the past, knowing full well that I disagree with them on a lot of things, so I want to state on the record that I respect and salute their professionalism.
But if you are attached to the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland – and I am not – you will need to start selling the case for the Union better; as Lee Reynolds puts it, “The declining politics of birth and disappeared politics of push must be replaced by the politics of persuasion.” Crucially, you will need to show that Unionism accepts election results even when it doesn’t win; non-Unionists have had to accept that for a century.
Unionism continues to be worse than Nationalism at appealing to its own core vote and not engaging with the centre (✔)
There is a better offer on the table from Nationalists (currently quite far from being achieved, and in particular the need for Nationalists to find a convincing narrative on health services is even more acute after the last two years).
Nothing is certain in politics, but the current direction of travel is clear, and the DUP and the Conservative Party are doing nothing to stop it.
Calculating total vote tallies between the sides is complicated by minor parties and candidates, but the headline is that Unionists and Nationalists are not far apart. I had previously said that if Nationalists outnumber Unionists at a Stormont election, there are grounds for the Sec of State to call a border poll. That threshold is not clearly met in terms of votes, and clearly not met in terms of seats won.
Ten seats changed hands in the election. Alliance gained nine – four from the SDLP, two each from the DUP and Greens and one from the UUP; and the DUP lost another seat in North Down where a former party colleague retained his seat as an independent.
SF did not gain or lose any seats, but became the largest party as the DUP tally fell. They missed out on two potential gains by poor balancing of their candidates, in East Londonderry and Upper Bann, and the UUP might also have had a chance of retaining both seats in East Antrim with better balancing.
The closest result was in Foyle, where the DUP survived a UUP challenge by 95 votes. That’s on the final count; the closest decisive elimination was in East Londonderry, where Alliance candidate was eliminated 15 votes behind the SDLP and his transfers then elected her.
For the TUV to get only one seat despite vote share of 7.6% is remarkable – proportionally that should have given them at least six! But they had great difficulty in attracting transfers. Conversely the DUP’s total of 25, while disappointing for the party, is about six more than would be proportionally expected from a 21.3% vote share.
Constituencies listed below in (rough) order of increasing Nationalist and decreasing Unionist vote share.
Lagan Valley
Jeffrey Donaldson
DUP
12,626
Robbie Butler
UUP
8,242
Sorcha Eastwood
Alliance
8,211
Paul Givan
DUP
5,062
David Honeyford
Alliance
4,183
Lorna Smyth
TUV
3,488
Pat Catney
SDLP
3,235
Gary McCleave
SF
2,725
Laura Turner
UUP
1,607
Gary Hynds
Ind
735
Simon Lee
Green
648
Amanda Doherty
PBP
271
DUP
34.7%
-6.6%
2
Alliance
24.3%
+10.7%
2 (+1)
UUP
19.3%
-5.9%
1
TUV
6.8%
+3.8%
SDLP
6.3%
-2.1%
0 (-1)
Sinn Féin
5.3%
+1.3%
Green Party
1.3%
-0.8%
PBP
0.5%
+0.5%
Others
1.4%
SDLP lost to Alliance by 643.56 votes on the last count, a gain that was not unexpected.
North Down
Alex Easton
Ind
9,568
Andrew Muir
Alliance
6,838
Stephen Dunne
DUP
6,226
Connie Egan
Alliance
5,224
Alan Chambers
UUP
3,825
Rachel Woods
Green
2,734
Jennifer Gilmour
DUP
2,068
John Gordon
TUV
1,574
Naomi McBurney
UUP
1,342
Déirdre Vaughan
SDLP
727
Thérèse McCartney
SF
687
Ray McKimm
Ind
604
Matthew Robinson
Cons
254
Chris Carter
Ind
72
Alliance
28.9%
+10.3%
2 (+1)
DUP
19.9%
-17.6%
1 (-1)
UUP
12.4%
-9.1%
1
Green
6.5%
-7.2%
0 (-1)
TUV
3.8%
+3.8%
SDLP
1.7%
-0.1%
SF
1.6%
+0.1%
Others
25.1%
1 (+1)
Alliance took the Green seat by 2500.82 votes, one of two seats gained by Alliance from the Greens.
Strangford
Kellie Armstrong
Alliance
7,015
Michelle McIlveen
DUP
6,601
Stephen Cooper
TUV
5,186
Harry Harvey
DUP
4,704
Mike Nesbitt
UUP
3,693
Peter Weir
DUP
3,313
Nick Mathison
Alliance
2,822
Philip Smith
UUP
2,535
Conor Houston
SDLP
2,440
Róisé McGivern
SF
1,607
Maurice Macartney
Green
831
Ben King
Ind
118
DUP
35.8%
-4.2%
2 (-1)
Alliance
24.1%
+9.1%
2 (+1)
UUP
15.2%
-4.8%
1
TUV
12.7%
+9.3%
SDLP
6.0%
-1.9%
SF
3.9%
+1.1%
Green
2.0%
-0.3%
Others
0.3%
Alliance won the last seat by 249.77 votes ahead of the TUV, Mathison taking the fifth seat despite having started in 7th place. This was the TUV’s best chance of a gain, but they were simply too transfer-repellent.
East Antrim
Gordon Lyons
DUP
6,256
John Stewart
UUP
6,195
David Hilditch
DUP
5,662
Stewart Dickson
Alliance
5,059
Danny Donnelly
Alliance
4,224
Oliver McMullan
SF
3,675
Norman Boyd
TUV
3,661
Roy Beggs
UUP
3,549
Siobhán McAlister
SDLP
1,200
Mark Bailey
Green
754
DUP
29.6%
-5.6%
2
UUP
24.2%
+1.5%
1 (-1)
Alliance
23.1%
+7.1%
2 (+1)
SF
9.1%
-0.8%
TUV
9.1%
+5.0%
SDLP
3.0%
-1.1%
Green
1.9%
-0.2%
TUV were 2076.4 behind DUP for last seat. Good balancing from Alliance who took one of the UUP’s seats despite starting with fewer votes. This was the only UUP seat lost in the election.
East Belfast
Naomi Long
Alliance
8,195
Joanne Bunting
DUP
7,253
David Brooks
DUP
6,633
Peter McReynolds
Alliance
5,820
Andy Allen
UUP
5,281
John Ross
TUV
3,087
Brian Smyth
Green
2,302
Mairead O’Donnell
SF
1,369
Lauren Kerr
UUP
1,282
Karl Bennett
PUP
970
Hannah Kenny
PBP
500
Charlotte Carson
SDLP
484
Eoin MacNeill
WP
72
Alliance
32.4%
+1.0%
2
DUP
32.1%
-5.5%
2
UUP
15.2%
+2.1%
1
TUV
7.1%
+4.9%
Green
5.3%
+1.7%
SF
3.2%
+0.3%
PBP
1.2%
+1.2%
SDLP
1.1%
+0.5%
Others
2.4%
UUP got the last seat by a pretty massive 3988.96 votes ahead of the Greens.
North Antrim
Robin Swann
UUP
9,530
Philip McGuigan
SF
9,348
Jim Allister
TUV
8,282
Mervyn Storey
DUP
6,747
Paul Frew
DUP
6,242
Patricia O’Lynn
Alliance
4,810
Matthew Armstrong
TUV
2,481
Eugene Reid
SDLP
1,919
Bethany Ferris
UUP
856
Paul Veronica
Green
343
Laird Shingleton
Ind
66
DUP
25.7%
-15.0%
1 (-1)
TUV
21.3%
+5.2%
1
UUP
20.5%
+8.0%
1
SF
18.5%
+2.7%
1
Alliance
9.5%
+4.1%
1 (+1)
SDLP
3.8%
-3.5%
Green
0.7%
-0.4%
Others
0.1%
Alliance took the last seat by 288.45 votes ahead of the DUP, possibly the least anticipated of the party’s gains. NB that O’Lynn is the first woman elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly from North Antrim, even going back to 1973 and 1982.
South Antrim
Declan Kearney
SF
9,185
John Blair
Alliance
7,315
Pam Cameron
DUP
6,899
Steve Aiken
UUP
5,354
Trevor Clarke
DUP
4,943
Mel Lucas
TUV
4,371
Roisin Lynch
SDLP
3,139
Paul Michael
UUP
2,821
Róisín Bennett
Aontú
657
Lesley Veronica
Green
539
Andrew Moran
Ind
262
Jerry Maguire
PBP
251
DUP
25.9%
-7.8%
2
SF
20.1%
+3.8%
1
UUP
17.9%
-2.9%
1
Alliance
16.0%
+3.5%
1
TUV
9.6%
+6.4%
SDLP
6.9%
-2.6%
Aontú
1.4%
+1.4%
Green
1.2%
0.0%
PBP
0.5%
-0.7%
Others
0.6%
DUP got last seat by 1878.25 ahead of SDLP. Another case where if the TUV had been more transfer-friendly, they could have been in contention.
Upper Bann
John O’Dowd
SF
9,242
Jonathan Buckley
DUP
8,869
Liam Mackle
SF
7,260
Diane Dodds
DUP
6,548
Eóin Tennyson
Alliance
6,440
Doug Beattie
UUP
5,199
Darrin Foster
TUV
4,373
Dolores Kelly
SDLP
3,645
Glenn Barr
UUP
3,367
Aidan Gribbin
Aontú
571
Lauren Kendall
Green
459
Glenn Beattie
Heritage
128
SF
29.4%
+1.6%
1
DUP
27.5%
-5.3%
2
UUP
15.3%
-5.3%
1
Alliance
11.5%
+6.2%
1 (+1)
TUV
7.8%
+5.8%
SDLP
6.5%
-3.4%
0 (-1)
Aontú
1.0%
+1.0%
Green
0.8%
-0.3%
Others
0.2%
Nationalists won only one seat out of five despite 36% of first preferences, as Alliance took the last seat by 376.07 votes ahead of SF.
East Londonderry
Caoimhe Archibald
SF
6,868
Maurice Bradley
DUP
6,786
Alan Robinson
DUP
5,151
Kathleen McGurk
SF
4,500
Claire Sugden
Ind
3,981
Cara Hunter
SDLP
3,664
Chris McCaw
Alliance
3,338
Jordan Armstrong
TUV
2,959
Darryl Wilson
UUP
2,625
Stephanie Quigley
Ind
1,503
Gemma Brolly
Aontú
1,095
Russell Watton
PUP
933
Mark Coulson
Green
347
Amy Merron
PBP
347
Niall Murphy
Ind
181
Billy Stewart
Ind
82
DUP
26.9%
-6.6%
2
SF
25.6%
-0.2%
1
SDLP
8.3%
+0.3%
1
Alliance
7.5%
+3.1%
TUV
6.7%
+4.2%
UUP
5.9%
-0.8%
Aontú
2.5%
+2.5%
Green
0.8%
+0.1%
PBP
0.8%
-0.4%
Others
15.1%
1
A lot of people, myself included, had written the SDLP off here based on first preferences, but they kept their seat. The decisive stage was the penultimate count, when the Alliance candidate was eliminated being 14.56 votes behind the SDLP; his transfers then elected her comfortably by 1666.56 votes ahead of SF.
North Belfast
Gerry Kelly
SF
8,395
Carál Ní Chuilín
SF
7,932
Phillip Brett
DUP
6,329
Brian Kingston
DUP
4,844
Nuala McAllister
Alliance
4,381
Nichola Mallon
SDLP
3,604
Ron McDowell
TUV
3,335
Julie-Anne Corr-Johnston
UUP
2,643
Mal O’Hara
Green
1,446
Fiona Ferguson
PBP
1,059
Billy Hutchinson
PUP
762
Seán Mac Niocaill
Aontú
640
Stafford Ward
Ind
489
Lily Kerr
WP
168
SF
35.5%
+6.1%
2
DUP
24.3%
-7.8%
2
Alliance
9.5%
+1.1%
1 (+1)
SDLP
7.8%
-5.3%
0 (-1)
TUV
7.2%
+7.2%
UUP
5.7%
-0.1%
Green
3.1%
+1.4%
PBP
2.3%
-1.5%
Aontú
1.4%
+1.4%
Others
3.1%
SDLP lost their seat to Alliance by 991.21 votes.
Fermanagh and South Tyrone
Jemma Dolan
SF
9,067
Colm Gildernew
SF
7,562
Áine Murphy
SF
7,379
Tom Elliott
UUP
5,442
Deborah Erskine
DUP
5,272
Paul Bell
DUP
4,255
Adam Gannon
SDLP
3,836
Alex Elliott
TUV
3,091
Rosemary Barton
UUP
2,912
Matthew Beaumont
Alliance
2,583
Denise Mullen
Aontú
927
Dónal Ó Cofaigh
CCLab
602
Kellie Turtle
Green
335
Emma DeSouza
Ind
249
Derek Backhouse
Ind
128
Emmett Kilpatrick
PBP
103
SF
44.7%
+2.6%
3
DUP
17.7%
-12.1%
1
UUP
15.5%
+3.9%
1
SDLP
7.1%
-2.7%
TUV
5.8%
+4.3%
Alliance
4.8%
+2.1%
Aontú
1.7%
+1.7%
Green`
0.6%
-0.4%
PBP
0.2%
+0.2%
Others
1.8%
The last seat was decided by a 508.12 vote margin between the two DUP candidates.
South Belfast
Deirdre Hargey
SF
9,511
Edwin Poots
DUP
7,211
Paula Bradshaw
Alliance
6,503
Matthew O’Toole
SDLP
5,394
Kate Nicholl
Alliance
5,201
Clare Bailey
Green
4,058
Stephen McCarthy
UUP
3,061
Andrew Girvin
TUV
1,935
Elsie Trainor
SDLP
2,030
Luke McCann
Aontú
806
Sipho Sibanda
PBP
629
Neil Moore
Socialist
353
Paddy Lynn
WP
139
Elly Odhiambo
Ind
107
Alliance
24.9%
+7.2%
2 (+1)
SF
20.3%
+2.6%
1
SDLP
15.8%
-3.6%
1
DUP
15.4%
-5.5%
1
Green
8.6%
-1.2%
0 (-1)
UUP
6.5%
-2.5%
TUV
4.1%
+2.5%
Aontú
1.7%
+1.7%
PBP
1.3%
-0.4%
Others
1.3%
Alliance took the Green seat by 911 votes.
West Tyrone
Nicola Brogan
SF
8,626
Maolíosa McHugh
SF
6,658
Tom Buchanan
DUP
6,640
Declan McAleer
SF
6,343
Daniel McCrossan
SDLP
5,483
Trevor Clarke
TUV
4,166
Stephen Donnelly
Alliance
2,967
Ian Marshall
UUP
1,876
Paul Gallagher
Ind
1,682
James Hope
Aontú
657
Carol Gallagher
PBP
354
Susan Glass
Green
252
Amy Ferguson
Socialist
171
Barry Brown
Ind
119
SF
47.0%
-1.1%
3
DUP
14.4%
-6.0%
1
SDLP
11.9%
-2.3%
1
TUV
9.1%
+7.1%
Alliance
6.5%
+3.6%
UUP
4.1%
-4.2%
Aontú
1.4%
+1.4%
PBP
0.8%
+0.8%
Green
0.5%
-0.4%
Others
4.3%
SF got the last seat 2707.36 votes ahead of TUV.
Newry and Armagh
Conor Murphy
SF
9,847
Cathal Boylan
SF
9,843
Liz Kimmins
SF
7,964
William Irwin
DUP
7,577
Justin McNulty
SDLP
6,217
Keith Ratcliffe
TUV
5,407
David Taylor
UUP
3,864
Jackie Coade
Alliance
3,345
Gavin Malone
Ind
3,157
Daniel Connolly
Aontú
1,189
Ciara Henry
Green
314
Nicola Grant
WP
160
SF
47.0%
-1.3%
3
DUP
12.9%
-4.9%
1
SDLP
10.6%
-5.8%
1
TUV
9.2%
+9.2%
UUP
6.6%
-6.7%
Alliance
5.7%
+3.1%
Aontú
2.0%
+2.0%
Green
0.5%
+0.1%
Others
5.6%
DUP got last seat 2892 votes ahead of TUV.
Mid Ulster
Michelle O’Neill
SF
10,845
Keith Buchanan
DUP
8,521
Emma Sheerin
SF
8,215
Linda Dillon
SF
8,199
Patsy McGlone
SDLP
5,144
Glenn Moore
TUV
3,818
Meta Graham
UUP
2,191
Claire Hackett
Alliance
2,138
Alixandra Halliday
Aontú
1,305
Patrick Haughey
Ind
877
Sophia McFeely
PBP
179
Stefan Taylor
Green
137
Hugh Scullion
WP
107
Conor Rafferty
Resume
13
SF
52.7%
0.0%
3
DUP
16.5%
-2.8%
1
SDLP
10.0%
-3.0%
1
TUV
7.4%
+4.9%
UUP
4.2%
-4.9%
Alliance
4.1%
+2.1%
Aontú
2.5%
+2.5%
Green
0.3%
-0.2%
PBP
0.3%
+0.3%
Others
1.9%
The SDLP took the last seat by a 3446 margin over the TUV.
South Down
Sinéad Ennis
SF
14,381
Cathy Mason
SF
9,963
Patrick Brown
Alliance
6,942
Diane Forsythe
DUP
6,497
Colin McGrath
SDLP
6,082
Harold McKee
TUV
3,273
Karen McKevitt
SDLP
3,006
Jill Macauley
UUP
2,880
Rosemary McGlone
Aontú
1,177
Noeleen Lynch
Green
412
Paul McCrory
PBP
205
Patrick Clarke
Ind
134
SF
44.3%
+5.7%
2
SDLP
16.5%
-8.6%
1 (-1)
Alliance
12.6%
+3.5%
1 (+1)
DUP
11.8%
-3.9%
1
TUV
6.0%
+4.7%
UUP
5.2%
-3.2%
Aontú
2.1%
+2.1%
Green
0.7%
-0.2%
PBP
0.4%
+0.4%
Others
0.2%
The last seat was decided between the two SDLP candidates by a margin of 3859.17 votes.
Foyle
Pádraig Delargy
SF
9,471
Mark H. Durkan
SDLP
7,999
Ciara Ferguson
SF
5,913
Gary Middleton
DUP
4,101
Ryan McCready
UUP
3,744
Brian Tierney
SDLP
3,272
Sinéad McLaughlin
SDLP
3,189
Shaun Harkin
PBP
2,621
Rachael Ferguson
Alliance
2,220
Emmet Doyle
Aontú
2,000
Anne McCloskey
Ind
854
Colly McLaughlin
IRSP
766
Elizabeth Neely
TUV
499
Gillian Hamilton
Green
215
SF
32.8%
-3.8%
2
SDLP
30.9%
-0.9%
2
DUP
8.8%
-4.6%
1
UUP
8.0%
+4.3%
PBP
5.6%
-5.1%
Alliance
4.7%
+2.2%
Aontú
4.3%
+4.3%
TUV
1.1%
+1.1%
Green
0.5%
-0.1%
Others
3.5%
In the longest count of the election, leading to the closest final count result, the DUP retained their seat by a margin of 95 votes over the UUP.
I’m in Belfast ready to comment on the election results as they come in tomorrow. I think John Taylor, now Lord Kilclooney, caught the mood of anticipation very well last week:
As an observer of NI elections since the first half of last century I have never known a more unpredictable election as the one on 5th May 2022. Gone are the days when the NI Election was so uninteresting that many were elected ‘unopposed!’
We’re seriously in the zone where it is generally considered likely that the DUP will come second to Sinn Féin in terms of votes and seats; and where it is questionable whether there will be more Unionists or more Nationalists in the new Assembly. The overall context is that polling predicts that both SF and the DUP will lose votes, but that the DUP will lose crucially more.
My one anecdote of the election comes from the parents of a friend from Sandy Row, a Loyalist area of central Belfast, who kindly gave me a lift from the airport last night. They told me that they had not seen a single canvasser from any party during the campaign. I have been critical of Unionists for reaching out only to their traditional voters and ignoring the potentially persuadable centre; but if traditionally Unionist voters are also being ignored, Unionism is in worse trouble than I realised. My friend’s father, once a regular DUP voter, was discreet about his voting intention today, but I noted that the only local candidate for whom he had a good word was Matthew O’Toole of the SDLP.
I want to throw one more set of data into the mix: who won the last seat, and who missed out, in each of the 18 constituencies in the 2017 election?
The interesting thing is that when you look at the Unionist/Nationalist marginals in 2017, Nationalists won almost all of them and there is not much left to pick up. The only two that are at all likely are Strangford, where the SDLP have been runners-up at every Assembly election since the Good Friday Agreement, and East Antrim, where SF start a bit farther off (but managed to win one out of six in 2011 and 2017). In both cases, the DUP look more vulnerable than the UUP, so a loss will affect the race for biggest party as well as the race for designations. Strangford and East Antrim are the two that I shall be watching most keenly tomorrow from that point of view.
2017 was a very good election for Nationalists – SF voters were motivated by Arlene Foster’s very ill-judged “crocodile” comments, and the SDLP, more by accident than design, did much better than the UUP out of their electoral alliance. The result was that in six seats where on previous electoral records one could have seen the glimmer of a chance of an extra Unionist seat, the last MLA elected was a Nationalist, some way ahead of the Unionist runner up. Those seats are West Belfast, Mid Ulster, West Tyrone, Newry and Armagh, Fermanagh and South Tyrone and Lagan Valley. To stem the tide, Unionism would need to look like it could make gains in several of them, and in a good year that should be possible; but this does not look like a good year.
The last seat in 2017 was contested between two Unionist candidates – in fact two DUP candidates in each case – in East Belfast, North Antrim and South Antrim. That tends to suggest that in those seats at least there is room for more slippage in the overall Unionist vote before a currently held seat is seriously at risk. The same is true on the other side where two Nationalist candidates were chasing hard for the second Nationalist quota in East Londonderry and Upper Bann, the SDLP winning in one case and SF in the other. In East Londonderry, it’s worth watching whether UUP transfers again help the SDLP over the line (or indeed whether they will be needed).
Within Unionism, the DUP is likely to be further eroded by Jim Allister and the TUV. Polls have them just at the level where they might make a breakthrough, or might be disappointed with just one or two gains. What gains they do make are likely to be directly from the DUP, further eroding their chance of being the largest party. Also on this point, watch Alex Easton, challenging his former DUP colleagues in North Down, Northern Ireland’s most volatile constituency.
I have not said much about the SDLP or UUP, because in this election they are really barometers for the dissatisfaction of the committed Nationalist or Unionist voter with SF or the DUP respectively. It seems fairly clear that SF will slip a bit less than the DUP because their narrative is a bit more coherent. There’s also the case of Fermanagh and South Tyrone where the SDLP were unlucky at an early stage of the 2017 count, and can hope for that luck to turn. But the UUP-SDLP transfers that made a difference in a couple of key seats last time may not be as readily available in 2022.
The centre ground will provide yet more interesting dynamics for the election. Of the 18 last elected MLAs in 2017, none were Alliance (or People before Profit). Two were the two Green Party MLAs in South Belfast and North Down, both of them elected well ahead of Unionist runners-up, so it’s a reasonable assumption that all of the centre ground seats held in 2017 will survive into 2022. In addition, People Before Profit are snapping at Unionist heels in Foyle. And most interesting of all, Alliance came closer than I for one expected to depriving Nationalists of a seat in both North Belfast and South Down. I can imagine a situation where Nationalists gain in, say, Strangford, but lose a couple of seats unexpectedly elsewhere, leaving the two sides on level pegging.
On a slightly different note, I have trawled Twitter and other sources, including an excellent series of posts on Slugger O’Tooler by Michael Hehir, to calibrate expectations of gains and losses in today’s vote. You will note how few potential Nationalist to Unionist shifts are listed.
Encouraging, but as expected (failing to gain these seats is a poor result)
Disappointing, but as expected (retaining these seats is a major triumph)
Alliance gain North Belfast from SF Alliance gain South Down from SDLP Alliance gain South Belfast from Greens or DUP Alliance gain East Antrim from DUP or UUP SDLP gain Fermanagh S Tyrone from SF Ind U gains North Down from DUP
SF lose North Belfast to Alliance SF lose Fermanagh S Tyrone to SDLP DUP lose Strangford to Alliance, TUV or SDLP DUP lose North Down to Ind U SDLP lose South Down to Alliance UUP lose East Antrim to Alliance or TUV
A good day
A bad day
Alliance gain Lagan Valley from SDLP Alliance or TUV gain Strangford from DUP Alliance gain Upper Bann from SDLP or DUP UUP gain Newry and Armagh from SF or DUP TUV gain East Antrim from DUP or UUP PBP gain Foyle from DUP or SF
SF lose West Tyrone to UUP or Alliance DUP lose East Antrim to TUV or Alliance DUP lose East Belfast to Green DUP lose Foyle to PBP or UUP SDLP lose Lagan Valley to Alliance SDLP lose Upper Bann to Alliance or SF Greens lose South Belfast to Alliance
An exceptionally good day
An exceptionally bad day
SDLP gain Strangford from DUP Alliance gain North Down from Greens SDLP gain West Belfast from SF UUP gain West Tyrone from SF UUP gain North Belfast from DUP Greens gain East Belfast from DUP
SF lose West Belfast to SDLP SF lose Newry and Armagh to UUP DUP lose North Belfast to Alliance or UUP DUP lose North Antrim to Alliance or TUV DUP lose South Antrim to TUV or UUP DUP lose Upper Bann to UUP or Alliance Greens lose North Down to Alliance
Extraordinary
Catastrophic
Anything else
Anything else
I don’t often agree with John Taylor, Lord Kilclooney, quoted at the top of this post. But he has 30 more years of observing and participating in Northern Ireland elections than I do, and won his first one before I was born (and I’ve just turned 55). So I take his sentiment seriously in this case, and I rather agree with it. It’s going to be an interesting day tomorrow.
And according to the current BBC schedule you can watch me at the following times:
Edited to add: With 4.25 million registered voters for Scotland’s local government elections today, and 1.37 million in Northern Ireland for the Assembly, is this the biggest ever set of elections on the same day using the Single Transferable Vote in UK history? I have considered the Irish local government elections of 1920, and the simultaneous elections for the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the Second Dáil / House of Commons of Southern Ireland in 1921, but I think that the total Irish electorate then was less than the sum of Northern Ireland and Scotland today. Not to mention the large numbers of uncontested seats, and the questionable extent to which those could be described as “UK” elections!
A week ago (wow, it’s been such a long week) the British Mission to the EU and the Northern Irish representative office jointly put on a showing of the Kenneth Branagh film Belfast at the Bozar in central Brussels.
It was just lovely to actually have a physical reception, after two years when it was very difficult. The British Ambassador made a wee speech:
Also the Northern Ireland deputy representative made a wee speech; and my friend Paul took photos, in the first of which my back is visible at the left.
Probably the majority of us in the crowd were Norn Iron exiles in Brussels; a few arty people had come over specially for the occasion, but basically this was UKMis showing that it was a good social actor; and succeeding.
Here’s the official trailer.
So, what did I think of the film?
I was born in 1967, so I was about 2 at the point that the events of the film unfold. (Though apparently “helicopter” – or “ally-agga” – was one of my first words, as we saw them zoom west over the garden.) A lot of it doesn’t really speak true to the Belfast experience. Nobody ever wandered down the streets with flaming torches. There were no Indian corner shops, and no ethnic minority teachers. There was no wee Catholic girl in the Protestant school. The bus to the airport didn’t exactly stop in side streets to pick people up. The houses were (and are) much smaller. The accents are much stronger in real life.
At the same time, one can forgive a lot of this for the sake of Art. Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds and Judy Dench are all actors who I knew anyway; I have seen one episode of Outlander starring Caitriona Balfe and now I have a strange impulse to see more. And young Jude Hill, from my ancestral part of the world, is glorious as the main character. The (Oscar-winning) script really crackles.
Pa: It’s all bloody religion. That’s the problem. Buddy: Then why are you sending us to church? Pa: Because your granny would kill me if I didn’t.
Pop: [to Buddy] Women are very mysterious. Granny: And women can smash your face in too, mister. Pop: Your granny’s become less mysterious over the years.
(After the supermarket has been looted) Ma: Why did you take that washing powder? Buddy: It’s biological!
Having said that, there’s no real interrogation of why the Troubles started in the first place. I think it would have been helpful for the audience to know that decades of injustice and discrimination do eventually bring the chickens home to roost. The impression given is that violence erupted purely out of sectarianism and bigotry at local level, which is far from the whole truth.
Having said that, I think almost all of us in Bozar related to the central dilemma of Buddy’s parents in the film; will you stay or will you go? And from the mere fact that we were in Brussels, we were all exiles, whether permanently or temporarily; and it was easy to relate to the problem of leaving a city that you love, and yet where you can’t live, and risking everything on a foreign venture. It works for a lot of people; it worked for Kenneth Branagh’s family and mine; it doesn’t work for everyone, and before you do it you don’t know what category you’ll end up in.
2017 Assembly election results in each constituency
Northern Ireland elects a new Assembly on 5 May, and as usual I have been crunching some numbers to establish a baseline of expectations – basically the results which would not be surprising, given the current polling which has the DUP in particular down a bit from last time. Given that there is more movement on the Unionist side, I’m taking the 18 seats in order from most to least Unionist, Lagan Valley to West Belfast. The headings in each case link to my website, where there is a lot more information.
Edited to add, after the election: Without changing my original text, I’ve noted the results in each seat.
The SDLP’s seat, won with UUP transfers after starting from barely half a quota in 2017, is on paper the most vulnerable, and on recent performance Alliance is best placed to pick it up. The DUP’s decision to run only two candidates in a constituency where their third was the runner-up in 2017 is telling. With only five Unionist candidates and almost four Unionist quotas, one cannot exclude a lucky day for the second UUP runner or for the TUV.
In the most volatile constituency in Northern Ireland, Alliance is strongly placed to gain a seat based on recent performance; each of the other three parties represented here is potentially vulnerable, with the DUP facing the added complication of their former member and sitting MLA Alex Easton standing as an independent candidate.
What happened: Alliance gained from the Greens, and the DUP did indeed lose their seat to Alex Easton.
It’s very difficult to see the DUP holding all three seats here, even in a good year (and this probably won’t be a good year). On recent showings, Alliance are better placed than the UUP to pick up; but the SDLP, who have been runners-up here in all six Assembly elections since the Good Friday Agreement, cannot be ruled out.
All five men elected here in 2017 are standing again, and the likeliest outcome is no change. But this is the constituency where the TUV have the best prospects of a gain, which could come from either of the other Unionist parties. If Alliance can balance two candidates ahead of SF, they too have a chance; as indeed do SF, in theory, if they can keep comfortably ahead of the trailing Alliance candidate and pull in transfers.
The status quo is the most likely outcome in terms of seats – 2 DUP, 2 Alliance and 1 UUP; another constituency where the third DUP candidate was runner-up in 2017, but they are only running two this year. One cannot exclude a successful challenge from TUV or PUP, given the UUP’s historical weakness here and the DUP’s current low poll ratings. Alliance are some way off a third quota, even with all available Nationalist transfers, and anyway have only two candidates.
All five men elected in 2017 are standing again. Alliance will be hopeful of a gain here, but the Unionist vote remains close to four quotas and Sinn Fein’s seat looks solid enough. Within Unionism, the DUP vote would have to fall pretty far, with poor balancing, for either the UUP or TUV to threaten their second seat.
What happened: Alliance gained from the DUP, whose balancing was good but their vote fell.
Another seat where the third DUP candidate was runner-up in 2017, but they are only running two this time. Both Alliance and SF look secure; with only three Unionist seats, the UUP must feel that they are in with a chance of picking up the third.
The SDLP were fortunate to get UUP and Alliance transfers in 2017, securing the second Nationalist seat despite SF starting with almost three times as many votes. Polling shows SF down a bit more than the SDLP, so the status quo is mildly more likely than not to prevail on the Nationalist side. A good day for the UUP would see them take the DUP seat here. Alliance are a bit further behind, but not all that far.
The SDLP’s 2017 performance here was poor, and hit by defection, yet they still managed to get the second Nationalist seat despite starting far behind SF. If the polls are right, and the SDLP’s rating is stable with SF down a bit, the same result on the Nationalist side is more likely than not. Alliance must have hopes of a gain here; but has Claire Sugden already got those votes? The DUP vote would have to fall quite a long way for their second seat to be under threat.
It’s difficult to see a third Unionist seat here, and also difficult to see another Unionist emerging to challenge the DUP for their second seat – in 2017, the DUP had just under two quotas, but their nearest rivals, the UUP, less than a third of one. Alliance expect to challenge strongly, but all three Nationalists look reasonably secure, with perhaps the SDLP least so.
SF were very lucky to get the third Nationalist seat in 2017, and the SDLP should expect to regain it if they are to make any headway anywhere at all in the election. The UUP were fortune to pick up the second Unionist seat in 2017, but indications are that this will be a better year for them, so the seat split between parties on the Unionist side is likely to remain the same. Both the DUP and UUP are running strong second candidates along with their incumbents, though, so a change of personnel is distinctly possible.
This is the only constituency with MLAs from five different parties; will that continue? On the 2019 local election results, Alliance could hope for a gain (most likely from the Greens); on the 2019 Westminster results, the SDLP could say the same. In 2017 the DUP’s second candidate (Emma Little-Pengelly, who was later the local MP from 2017 to 2019) was the runner-up behind her running-mate, Christopher Stalford; this year they are running only one candidate, Edwin Poots, who was briefly the party leader in 2021 and transferred here from Lagan Valley after Stalford’s sudden death in 2022.
Unionists had a generally bad year in 2017, and this is one of the three key constituencies in the West where we’ll see if that was a blip or a trend. If it was a blip, the UUP should have a chance of picking up one of SF’s three seats; if it was a trend, there will be no change.
The UUP must have a decent chance at taking the DUP seat. Unionists had a generally bad year in 2017, and this is another of the three key constituencies in the West where we’ll see if that was a blip or a trend. If it was a blip, the UUP will gain from SF rather than from the DUP; if it was a trend, they won’t.
Again, Unionists had a generally bad year in 2017, and this is the third of the three key constituencies in the West where we’ll see if that was a blip or a trend. If it was a blip, the UUP should have a chance of picking up, either from the SDLP or one of SF’s three seats; if it was a trend, there will be no change.
Only two incumbents are standing for re-election, the lowest of any constituency. Alliance, runners up here last time, will be challenging for a seat; both the SDLP and SF are closer to their second quota than Alliance are to their first, but accidents can happen… The Unionist side is messy too, with both DUP and UUP having had certain local difficulties. There is only one Unionist seat, but it’s not necessarily the DUP’s.
No change is the most likely outcome. The Unionist vote is slowly crumbling here, hovering around a quota, but it would be a very bad year for Unionists to lose it. The UUP are talking up their chances of taking the DUP seat, but I don’t see it on the previous numbers. On the Nationalist side, SF have a stronger starting point, but their internal problems here will not help, and if PBP (or anyone else) were to make an unexpected breakthrough, it would more likely come from SF than the SDLP. The SDLP are running a third candidate, but that is rather optimistic.
4 seats out of 5 is an unusually good result in an STV election. SF have a reasonable chance of retaining all four. The Unionist vote is below a quota, and the SDLP far below that.
Overall, I think that Unionists are likely to continue to outnumber Nationalists, but that SF will pass the DUP as the largest single party. If that is the case, will the DUP accept the results and allow a government to be formed? We shall see.
It is five years today since Martin McGuinness died. I met him only a handful of times. He actually spoke about me once in public, as we were waiting for the European Parliament election results in 2014.
He did bad things as well as good things; but not many people have been that complimentary about me on live TV.
There is much discussion in Northern Ireland – and in the Republic – on the conditions for a referendum on whether or not Northern Ireland should stay in the UK, or become part of a united Ireland. I’ve been fairly clear in my own mind about this for a number of years. I wrote in 2014 that an Assembly election in which Nationalist parties exceed Unionist parties in either votes or seats, or two non-Assembly elections in a row where that happens, would surely be sufficient grounds for the Secretary of State to call a Border Poll.
I’m also fairly clear – and wrote about this in the Irish Times in 2019 – that for the pro-United Ireland side to win such a referendum requires three things to happen: 1) Brexit working out badly; 2) Unionists continuing to talk only to their own core voters and not to the centre ground; 3) Nationalists coming up with a better offer, especially on health services. The first two of these conditions are close to being fulfilled at present; the third, however, is also necessary and we are not there yet.
But there has been much less examination of where such votes have happened previously. Self-determination referendums and plebiscites are not exactly rare in world history. But it’s pretty unusual for the options to be restricted to a choice of which already existing state you want to be part of. Much more often, voters are choosing between independence, on the one hand, and rule by someone else, on the other. I was myself involved in the two most recent independence referendums to have succeeded, in Montenegro in 2006 and in South Sudan in 2011.
Referendums have their advantages and their flaws, and I’m not really going to go into the merits here, just present the historical detail. I’ll note that (of course) they are a pretty blunt instrument, offering little nuance or reassurance for minorities, and that not every one of these historical votes could really be described as having taken place under free and fair circumstances.
Historically I find the following internationally recognised precedents for a popular vote where the electorate were asked about future sovereignty, and independence was not one of the options. There are (arguably) twenty-one of them. In eight cases, voters chose to remain in the country they were currently ruled by. In ten cases, voters chose a change of sovereignty, though in three of those nine cases the will of the voters was not in fact implemented and they stayed where they were. And in the remaining three cases, the territory was split between the two states who wanted to rule it.
1527: Burgundy. The scholar Mats Qvortrup cites this as a very early example of a plebiscite. Under the 1526 Treaty of Madrid, Burgundy was to have been ceded by France to Spain; but King Francis I of France organised a vote of male property owners in Burgundy, who rejected the Treaty, and Burgundy remained French.
1860: Nice and Savoy. Between 1849 and 1870 there were a dozen referendums on self-determination in Italy, as states voted (usually by huge and dubious margins) to join with the new kingdom, effectively merging with Piedmont in the process known as the Risorgimento. Most of those votes do not count for present purposes, as the choice was between continued independence and Italian rule. However, there is one exception: the price for French support of the Risorgimento, under the Treaty of Turin, was the annexation of the town of Nice and province of Savoy, which had until then been under Piedmontese rule. Two referendums in 1860 ratified the transfer.
1868 and 1916, Danish West Indies; 1877, Saint-Barthelemy. A couple of interesting cases in the Caribbean, where on three occasions, islanders voted on which external power they wanted to be ruled by – the Danish West Indies choosing whether to be ruled by Denmark or the United States, and Saint-Barthelemy choosing whether to shift from Swedish to French rule. In all three cases, the referendum was in favour of change, but the US Senate rejected the annexation of the Danish West Indies in 1870, changing its mind almost half a century later; they are now the U.S. Virgin Islands.
1919-22, post-War Europe. The end of the first world war brought a number of new states into being, none of which chose to ratify their independence by referendum. However, there were a number of cases of border adjustments being made by holding a vote in the disputed territories. Only a minority of these votes resulted in a transfer of sovereignty. Two of them were frustrated, both in 1919, when the Vorarlberg province of Austria voted to join Switzerland, and the Åland Islands off the coast of Finland voted to join Sweden, but in both cases, the result was not internationally recognised and they were compelled to remain under Austrian and Finnish rule respectively.
In 1920, there were five such referendums, three of which resulted in votes to stick with the country they had previously been ruled by. So, in February 1920, the northern part of the German province of Schleswig voted to become part of Denmark – the only successful transfer of sovereignty from a single referendum. But a month later, in March 1920, central Schleswig voted to remain in Germany, and the planned vote for southern Schleswig was cancelled. Later that year, the formerly German towns of Eupen and Malmedy voted to join Belgium in a very dodgy process where there was no secret ballot; East Prussia voted to stay in Germany rather than join Poland; the southern zone of Carinthia voted to stay with Austria rather than join the new state of Yugoslavia. In 1921, the district of Sopron voted to stay in Hungary rather than join Austria.
The biggest and messiest of these referendums was the last, held in Upper Silesia in March 1921, in a situation of violence and vote-rigging from both sides. The vote was 60% for Germany and 40% for Poland; the territory in the end was divided, with both sides getting about half of the population, Germany getting more of the land and Poland more of the heavy industry. (It should be added that intimidation and violence were standard features of these referendums.)
1935, Saarland. In a hangover from the First World War, the Saar Basin Territory (now the Saarland), which had been under international rule through the League of Nations, was given a choice between the status quo, joining Germany, or joining France. The German option won more than 90% of the vote, with the status quo a very distant second. So few voters chose France that I hesitate to include it on this list. It’s a rare case of a referendum with more than two options, not that it made much difference in the end.
1947, India/Pakistan. I find only five more internationally recognised referendums in the last hundred years where voters chose between different countries, without independence being on the table. Two of them were parts of the Indian independence process in 1947, with both the North West Frontier Province and the District of Sylhet voting to join Pakistan rather than India. Sylhet was divided, with a small part of it staying in India and the rest now in Bangladesh.
1961, British Cameroons. There have been a number of referenda and plebiscites in Africa, but in almost every case independence has been one of the options on the ballot (including, as mentioned, Southern Sudan, now South Sudan, in 2011). The only exception that I have found was the former territory of the British Cameroons in 1961, in which the population were given the choice between joining the former French colony of Cameroon to the east, or Nigeria to the west. In 1959 they had already voted on whether or not to join Nigeria, and chose not, or at least not yet. In 1961, the Muslim north voted to join Nigeria, and the Christian south to join Cameroon, and that was what in the end happened.
1967 (and 2002), Gibraltar. The 1967 referendum on Gibraltar’s sovereignty clearly satisfies my criteria for inclusion on this list. It was the result of a talks process between Spain and the United Kingdom, and voters were given a choice between integration with Spain or continued British rule. They chose British rule by an overwhelming majority. In 2002 the government of Gibraltar held another referendum, but I don’t think this counts for my purposes: it was a declarative (and again overwhelming) rejection of unpublished proposals for shared sovereignty between the UK and Spain, without any positive option being on the ballot.
1973, Northern Ireland. It is almost fifty years since voters anywhere in the world were given the choice of which country to be part of, without independence being one of the options, and the last such vote was the March 1973 Border Poll in Northern Ireland. On a 59% turnout, 99% of voters supported Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom, and only 1% voted for Irish unification. I find it interesting that 50-60,000 votes for the Union were cast by people who did not then vote for pro-Union parties in the local council and Assembly elections a few months later.
