Reduction in number of MPs

According to a BBC article, Nigel Dodds has spoke out against the passing of the bill to change the Westminster election voting system and reduce the number of Northern MPs.

The question arises as to why Dodds is critical of the bill. We already know that he will be struggling to hold his North Belfast seat at the next general election if current demographic and electoral trends in that constituency continue.

At present Unionists hold 9 seats, Nationalists hold 8 and Alliance hold 1. As the Alliance party won a seat in East Belfast due to the unpopularity of Peter Robinson, I think it is fair to say that many of the votes for Alliance in the constituency were drawn from Unionist voters.

Lets assume that Unionists hold 10 seats and Nationalists hold 8. Assuming that there are no changes to constituencies or the number of MPs at the next Westminster elections and Gerry Kelly wins North Belfast as expected, we will be left with 9 Unionist seats and 9 Nationalist seats. For the first time ever unionists will not have a majority of seats.

Under the proposals being pushed through by the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition in Britain the number of MPs in the north could be reduced from 18 to 15 seats, a loss of 3 seats. Does Nigel know something the rest of us do not? Is he worried that if the number of MPs are reduced by 3, it might be possible that a situation may arise where Nationalists actually have more MPs than Unionists after the next general election?

UUP leadership

On Wednesday 22nd of September the UUP will have a new leader. The leadership battle is to be a two horse race between a traditionalist Tom Elliot and a moderniser Basil McCrea.

A profile of each candidate is available on the UUP website.

Basil McCrea

Cllr Basil McCrea MLA was elected in 2007 to the Northern Ireland Assembly as an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member for Lagan Valley.
He is also a UUP Councillor on Lisburn City Council and a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board and UUP spokesman on Education.
Basil was educated at Belfast Royal Academy before attaining a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Birmingham. He later attained a degree in Advanced Computer Technology from the University of Ulster.


Tom Elliot


Political Career:Active member of the Fermanagh Unionist Association for many years
Honorary Secretary of the Fermanagh Unionist Association from 1998
Ulster Unionist Councillor on Fermanagh District Council from 2001, serving on following committees - Development, Planning, Policy & Resources; Environmental Services; Equality Impact.
Election Agent for James Cooper in the 2001 Westminster Elections
Chairman of internal Ulster Unionist ad-hoc Review group for its duration 2000/1
Special Interests:
Agriculture and Regional Development.
Educated Ballinamallard P.S.; Duke of Westminister High School, Ballinamallard & Kesh; Enniskillen College of Agriculture - College Certificate in Agriculture.
Justice
Employment:
Farmer on family run Beef and Dairy farm.
Part-time Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Irish Regiment for 18 years


Elliot the traditionalist is an Orangeman. He favors of a formal link up with the DUP in a bid to form "unionist unity". He does not favor continuing the link with the British Tories and has spoken of his determination to change the St Andrews agreement so a nationalist cannot be elected as First Minster.

McCrea is strictly opposed to doing any deal with the in any form with the DUP and is also against a continuation of the Tory link.

The bookmakers have not yet published odds but it would appear that Elliot is seen as the favorite.

If Elliot wins and this man is given a platform to speak on behalf of moderate unionism, he will, with his 'traditional unionism' views antagonise and agitate many people. In fact he has already started with anti GAA and anti gay remarks.

Past experience tells us that as unionism attempts to strategise in order to encumber nationalism does not work. We saw this in Fermanagh and South Tyrone this year. Attempts at 'unionist unity' had the opposite effect and led to nationalist motivation. Elliot's appointment will ensure nationalism will again be motivated in upcoming elections. It may also lead to increased unionist apathy and ensure that people who occupy the centre ground or whom are indifferent to the constitutional question, will not look to unionist parties on polling day.

Best of luck Tom.

Census 2011

Sunday 27 March 2011 is the date Census 2011 will be conducted. It is not yet known when results will be published but it should be noted that this is the first time that census information can be completed online. Consequently results are expected to be published earlier than in previous censuses. The census which is conducted every ten years will provide "comprehensive demographic statistics for small areas and small population groups, as well as Northern Ireland as a whole. Information from the Census is used extensively across the public, private and voluntary sectors and has many important uses".

However, the reality is many people will be looking at census results for a breakdown of the two main religious blocks and to ascertain whether trends from previous censuses are continuing.

Table S306 of the 2001 census can be summarised in the following table:

	Protestant	Catholic	Other
Population	53.1%	43.8%	3.1%
Electorate	56.2%	41.5%	2.3%

It will be interesting to see the 2011 version of this table.

The evolution of trends will also be of keen interest. This graph taken from the 2001 census shows that the 'tipping point' is the age of 27 i.e. the population above the age of 27 is majority Protestant and the population below the age of 27 is majority Catholic. Will the 2011 equivalent of this table show the 'tipping point' has moved exactly ten years to the right?

This chart shows the growth in the Catholic population based on census results from 1961 to 2001 (the results are based on this table on CAIN). Will the Catholic population reach/surpass the 45% mark and will the Protestant population dip below 50% for the first time once the 2011 census results are published?

Fianna Fáil to move North?

Brian Cowen travelled to the Armagh village of Crossmaglen on Thursday to open the latest Fianna Fáil office in the North. This follows the setting up of FF forums in Fermanagh, Down and Armagh. Plans are believed to be in place to set up foums in Antrim, Derry and Tyrone in the coming months. FF already have large cummans in the Norths main universities.

All this poses one question. Will they be contesting the 2011 assembly elections? It is of course too early to say but according to one article they are.

“This is about a bottom-up approach and there is no question of us contesting elections in the immediate future,” said a senior Fianna Fáil source yesterday.

As the assembly elections are fought under the Single-Transferable-Vote system, their entry in to the North would not have the effect of vote splitting. Also it would be interesting to see where they would get votes from. Nationalist voters do not have a centre right pro business party to vote for so one would imagine they will take votes from both SF and the SDLP. In 2008 a former Ulster Unionist Councillor and businessman from south Down joined Fianna Fáil so it will be interesting to see how many votes the party can attract from Unionists IF they contest elections next March.

Catholic/Nationalist and Protestant/Unionist

Some people do not take kindly to others describing Catholics as Nationalists, and Nationalists as Catholics interchangeably. Similarly, the same can be said with those who refer to 'Protestants' to describe the Unionist community. They argue that just because one is a Catholic, does not make them an automatic Nationalist and similarly, a Protestant is not necessarily a Unionist.


It is interesting to compare the the Nationalist electorate to the Catholic electorate. The Catholic electorate is relatively easy to calculate. Looking at table S306 of the 2001 census, by adding the totals of people aged 9 years and over in 2001 (they are 18 in 2010) and removing the few people who were 90 and over in 2001 we see that the Catholic electorate is 43.0%. The election in 2010 showed that Nationalist parties received 42.0%. This is an almost exact correlation.


Using the same approach, the Protestant electorate in 2010 per the 2001 census was 54.4%. The 2010 election shows Unionist parties received 50.5% of the vote. Although not quite as correlated as the Nationalist/Catholic electorate, the Protestant/Unionist correlation is strikingly similar.


It may be 'politically incorrect' to refer to Nationalists and Catholics and Protestants and Unionists interchangeably, however it may not be entirely 'factually incorrect'.

Leinster final

Yesterday we witnessed an absolute belter of a Leinster football final. It looked like Louth were going to win their first Leinster title in 53 years, until a last gasp Joe Sheridan goal snatched victory for Meath. TV replays clearly showed should have been disallowed. How neither the referee nor the 2 umpires behind the goal did not see that the ball was carried over the line American football style touchdown is beyond me. The bookmakers are offering odds of 15/8 that there will be a replay. However with the faith I have in the GAA hierarchy and the CCCC (whatever that means) I think i'll save my money to back Brazil winning the next World Cup at 4/1.

12th of July

Here, on the glorious 12th of July we see the supporters of the "Orangefest" sing "The Famine Song". The words "Why don't you go home" must seem very ironic to the indigenous community!

I am sure the people they are telling to go home will have no problem with these marches as long as marchers and their drunken, loutish followers don't march where they are clearly not wanted.

Then again, maybe if they look at these kind of photos maybe they will!

KAT = Kill All Taigs (Catholics)

FAP = F*ck All Papists

So what exactly is the 12th? Unrest begins on the night before as loyalists prepare for their July 12 commerations by burning Irish tricolours on huge bonfires. The day itself sees hundreds of parades across the north. Most are not contentious. However marches through Nationalist neighbourhoods usually are. Why? Ask yourself what the reaction would be if the Klu Kluk Klan were to march through Harlem!

Beware the ides of March

It was originally planned to hold a referendum on changing the Westminster voting system on the same day as the Assembly and Local elections. It has been confirmed that the referendum will be held on May 5.

However according to the BBC NI politicians and electoral authorities "favour holding the scheduled elections to the 26 councils on an earlier date, probably the first Thursday in March."

The first Thursday of March 2011 is of course the March 3rd which is less than eight months from now. Expect the election campaign to kick off in the Autumn.

FAI vs. IFA - European Court of Arbitration for Sport

On Monday 19 July the Irish Football Association will take the Football Association of Ireland to the European Court of Arbitration for Sport in a final and desperate attempt to deny Irish citizens from the North the opportunity to represent their country.

Unionists argue that if a player born in Northern Ireland has no links with the Republic of Ireland (parent/grandparent born there) should not be allowed to play with this "foreign country". They already have a small player pool and with half of their professional footballers declaring for the ROI team, this will have a detrimental affect on their team.

Nationalists argue that the GFA allows them an automatic right to Irish citizenship and therefore they should not be prevented from playing for their country in which they hold citizenship or at the very least they should be entitled to the choice.

Darron Gibson, Marc Wilson and Shane Duffy are examples of high profile footballers who have made the switch from playing underage football with NI to declare for the Ireland senior squad. The Ireland underage squads also have numerous northern based players in their squads.

The problem for these players, other than not wanting to play for a country that does not represent them is that the IFA is a British football association which is supported almost exclusively by Unionists. The anthem is God Save the Queen, the flag is the unionist unofficial flag of Northern Ireland, complete with crown. The stadium Windsor Park is located in a staunchly loyalist area of Belfast and union jacks can be seen on match days. Add to this the sectarian abuse that catholic players have received in the past including death threats to former Celtic F.C captain and current manager Neil Lennon and it is not difficult to see why more and more northern players are declaring for Ireland.

Many of the teams supporters argue that things have changed and that sectarian abuse of catholics is a thing of the past. This is open to debate. While the IFA must be commended for their 'Football for All' initiative to rid itself of sectarianism, it was only last year that NI played Poland in Windsor Park. It is well documented the abuse that Artur Boruc received as were the riots that ensued with the Polish supporters. Now it is no secret that Polish fans have a hooligan element. However the fact that Boruc was the Celtic goalkeeper at the time and the fact that Polish fans are predominantly Catholic, does call in to question if sectarianism was not an element in the trouble that day.

This will be the IFAs thrid attempt to block nationalist players playing for their country. Twice they have gone to FIFA and twice they have been told where to go. On Monday week I expect the CAS to send the IFA home with their tail between their legs. They will not ignore FIFAs two previous rulings nor will they defy or violate an internationally binding agreement between two sovereign nations. This blog will return to this issue after the ruling.

Political support

The CAIN website produces an interesting table of political support for the three blocks (nationalist, unionist and other).  I have reproduced this table in graph form.



The trend is clear. It is one of unionist decline and subsequent nationalist improvement. In 1986 the westminster by-elections were as a result of the resignation of all unionist MPs in December 1985 in protest to the Anglo Irish Agreement. As nationalists did not resign their seats there was no by-elections for these seats. Nationalists did stand in the marginal constituencies held by unionists, hence the 18.6% of the vote. There is also a drop in the unionist vote in the 1977 local government election and a less pronounced drop in the nationalist vote. These are offset by an equal but opposite increase in the 'other' vote so it is safe to assume that the other candidate took votes from unionists and to a lesser extent nationalists. Other than those two elections the unionist and nationalist lines are fairly smooth considering it will never be entirely smooth due to variances in turnout.

Im sure unionists will argue that the trend has leveled off at the turn of the century. However when one considers that nationalist turnout has decreased in every election since 2001, and by 2010 it had decreased 15.6% since the 2001 westminster election, yet the nationalist vote has held firm (abeit the unionist turnout also declined by 8.7%) it is obvious that the surge in nationalist numbers continues and will do until it overtakes unionism in the not too distant future.