#GE24 Constituency Profile: North Down
ABOUT THE CONSTITUENCY
The result of the 2023 Review of Parliamentary Constituencies means that the overall North Down electorate has increased by around 3,300 voters. The main change is moving the rest of Garnerville from Belfast East into North Down. Unionist parties (particularly the DUP) as well as Alliance will expect to see their overall vote go up as a result: though the change in the proportional vote share will be minimal. The constituency has lost its part of Glen to Strangford and gained the rest of Ballygrainey.
PREVIOUS ELECTIONS
North Down is a Westminster constituency where successful candidates have a history of retaining the seats for multiple terms. Jim Milfedder held the seat from 1970 through to 1995. Sylvia Hermon displaced incumbent UK Unionist Party’s MP Robert McCartney in the 2001 General Election and held the seat until her retirement in 2019 with a vote share varying between 41.2% and 63.3%. Her 2001 candidacy was the result of the UUP deselecting Peter Weir and was assisted by Alliance’s Stephen Farry standing aside to help oust McCartney.
As the DUP candidate, Alex Easton came second in 2015 (23.6% of the vote), second in 2017 (38.1%), and runner-up for a third time in 2019 (37.9%). Sylvia Hermon’s old vote split 3:1 in favour of Alliance over the UUP, propelling Stepohen Farry to victory in 2019.
2019 RESULTS
Stephen Farry (Alliance) won with a vote share of 45.2% and a majority of 2,968 over the DUP’s Alex Easton.
COMMENTARY
This seat was the shock result of 2019 with the departure of Lady Sylvia Hermon creating an opening for Alliance’s Stephen Farry to achieve a huge 36 percentage point swing to become the MP. This was only the second time in Northern Ireland’s history that Alliance had won a Westminster election, and the third party member to sit on the green benches in the House of Commons. (Stratton Mills won North Belfast for UUP in 1972, joined Alliance in 1973, and retired at the February 1974 election.)
If Farry gets re-elected he will make history as the only Alliance MP to win a second term. Challenging him again is Alex Easton who is now running as an independent. Easton won an Assembly seat as an independent in 2022. Easton is endorsed in this General Election by the TUV and the DUP.
Despite a majority of the North Down electorate voting for unionist candidates at every Westminster election since 1885, the last time a mainstream unionist party won the seat was 2005. That’s unlikely to change in July 2024.
Colonel Tim Collins is running for the UUP. At the last Westminster election the party scored 12.1% of the vote, a far cry from their 56.0% share in the 2001 poll.
Unlike 2019, the Greens (Barry McKee) and the SDLP (Deirdre Vaughan) are on the North Down ballot paper, which means a split on the non-Unionist side of the vote. North Down is one of the Green Party’s strongest constituencies in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin are not running a candidate.
Independent candidate Chris Carter is also running: for more than two decades he’s regularly been on North Down Assembly and General Election ballot papers..
PREDICTION
Too close to call.