#GE24 constituency profile: East Londonderry
ABOUT THE CONSTITUENCY
The result of the 2023 Review of Parliamentary Constituencies means that Eglinton transferred in from Foyle as well as the remainder of Claudy which now fully lies within East Londonderry. Overall the electorate has increased by around 2,850 voters, with a slight nudge on the dial towards extra nationalist voters, and fewer unionist and other.
PREVIOUS ELECTIONS
Gregory Campbell has held East Londonderry for the DUP since beating UUP’s William Ross in 2001. An initial majority of 1,901 votes blossomed into 9,607 by the last general election. Alliance more than doubled their vote between 2017 (2,538, 6.2%) and 2019 (5,921, 15.1%) Westminster elections – just a couple of hundred votes shy of SDLP’s Cara Hunter. However, Alliance’s first preference vote at the 2022 Assembly election saw their fortune plummet to previous levels. Of the seven constituencies in which they ran in 2019, Aontú came closest to keeping their deposit in East Londonderry, just 235 votes short of the 5% target.
2019 RESULTS
Gregory Campbell (DUP) won with a vote share of 40.1% and a majority of 9,607 over the SDLP’s Cara Hunter.
COMMENTARY
Gregory Campbell is a high-profile member of the DUP and is the second longest serving incumbent in Northern Ireland, If he retains the East Londonderry seat – the DUP’s second safest seat (after North Antrim) – his sixth term in the House of Commons will make him the new longest serving MP across NI’s 18 constituencies.
In 2024, the race within unionism is more crowded than in 2019 with the TUV running a candidate – Councillor Allister Kyle – for the first time since 2010 (when former DUP MP William Ross took 7.4% of the votes for his new party). The TUV will be hopeful to build on the 6.7% share they achieved in the 2022 Assembly poll. Glen Miller is running for the UUP: the party dropped to fifth place in 2019.
One surprise in 2019 was the strength of the SDLP. Cara Hunter came second with a vote share up by nearly five percentage points, the biggest swing to the SDLP outside of Foyle and Belfast South. The party’s fortunes have dipped since 2019, and Hunter was narrowly re-elected to the Assembly in 2022.
Sinn Féin is running Kathleen McGurk, a local councillor and 2022 Assembly candidate. McGurk was one of the contenders chasing the fifth seat eventually won by the SDLP. This constituency is home to the Minister of Finance, Caoimhe Archibald, and McGurk will be hoping to capitalise on Sinn Féin’s surge across Northern Ireland since 2019.
Richard Stewart is running for the Alliance Party. His colleague and former councillor, Chris McCaw, polled well in 2019 and was in the chase for an Assembly seat in 2022 although his party’s share dropped back. Aontú deputy leader Gemma Brolly is on the ballot as well as the Green Party’s Jen McCahon and Conservative candidate Claire Louise Scull.
PREDICTION
DUP hold.