Northern Ireland Assembly Election, 2022

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1522633239273394176?s=20&t=tX9eOqo-s...

Final total of the first preferences.

DUP+UUP+TUV: 40.5% (-3.3%)
SF+SDLP+Aontu: 39.6% (-0.3%)
Alliance+Green: 15.4% (+4.1%)

Getting awfully close between the unionist and nationalist votes. Nationalists would actually be ahead if PBP (which seems to get almost exclusively Catholic votes) were counted as nationalist, although officially they are non-sectarian. Even more so if the pre-election CW that a lot of the Alliance's gains were coming from the SDLP is true.

[Tintrlvr]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1522633239273394176?s=20&t=tX9eOqo-s...

Final total of the first preferences.

DUP+UUP+TUV: 40.5% (-3.3%)
SF+SDLP+Aontu: 39.6% (-0.3%)
Alliance+Green: 15.4% (+4.1%)

Getting awfully close between the unionist and nationalist votes. Nationalists would actually be ahead if PBP (which seems to get almost exclusively Catholic votes) were counted as nationalist, although officially they are non-sectarian. Even more so if the pre-election CW that a lot of the Alliance's gains were coming from the SDLP is true.

I would argue that a majority of the Alliance vote would vote to remain part of the UK though. Perhaps soft unionists? Personally, I support the union and would vote Alliance because the DUP is disgusting and the UUP has become ineffective.

I don't disagree. It's more interesting from the perspective of the First Minister post; if the nationalist vote continues to equal or exceed the unionist vote, it's hard to see any party other than SF being largest party (and therefore holding the FM post) going forward given the greater fragmentation on the unionist side. Which would be quite a sea change for Northern Ireland.

[Tintrlvr]

What are the demographics of the Alliance candidates ? is it an even mix of 50-50 protestants and Catholics( do they still have any minority MLA's) ?

I believe all of the current Alliance MLAs are of Protestant background. One of their current MLAs is a former UUP activist and candidate who left that party over social-liberal issues (sexism, homophobia, etc.). All of the others are gene-pool Alliance and have never been active in any other party. I'm not sure about their candidates in this election; possibly they are running some Catholics in some more heavily Catholic areas.

Edit: I found at least one: Eóin Tennyson, the Alliance candidate in Upper Bann, is from a Catholic background. He appears to be likely to be elected. He's also only 23 years old, emblematic I suppose of the old barriers breaking down among younger people.

It sounds like you are aware of Anna Lo, who was a prominent figure in the Alliance in the past but left politics basically because she was tired of receiving racist threats (not from within the party but from other parties and the public). She was also the only notable Alliance figure I am aware of who had actually stated a preference for Irish unification. There are no Alliance MLAs or candidates this election who are not white.

Does a unionist party or Sinn Fein ever include a token Protestant/Catholic as a MLA ?

Not that I am aware of. That would be pretty shocking, honestly.

[Tintrlvr]

Two more seats completed:

North Antrim Alliance gain from DUP, so one each for DUP, UUP, TUV, Alliance and SF.  Beautiful (both the constituency and the Alliance gain).

West Tyrone No change.

In Upper Bann, UUP leader Doug Beattie has held on.  The last seat looks close between Sinn Féin, who have a surplus to transfer, and Alliance, who may get a few Unionist transfers.

Alliance definitely gets the last seat in Upper Bann over SF. Alliance is up 500 votes over SF and the surplus to be allocated is from the UUP.

I'm a little surprised at how well the TUV vote there transferred specifically to the lagging DUP candidate instead of being spread across the various unionists; I thought Dianne Dodds was going to go out on count 5 (which would have meant the second SF candidate would get in), but she just barely hung on.

[Tintrlvr]

Can someone explain the Alliance's actual political postions on the issues beyond being neutral on reunification? where do they lie on economic and social issues ?

Are they at all similar to the Liberal Democrats ?

Beyond being neutral in the unionist/nationalist debate (which is also paired with very real-world issues, such as criticism of corruption of those involved with unionist or nationalist militias and gangs), Alliance is the most socially liberal party represented in the Assembly (the Greens are comparable, of course). A number of Alliance members, especially historically, would probably have been UUP-ers but found the UUP too socially conservative. (One of their MLAs, Paula Bradshaw, cited this exact reason for why she left the UUP, and they have been and remain the only party to send LGBT members to the Assembly.)

I don't think Alliance has a particularly ideological economic policy but could be broadly described as centrist. The problem in discussing economic policy in Northern Ireland is that in a society where your economic status is so heavily bound up in your ethno-religious background (Catholics are much poorer on average than Protestants because of historical and present discriminatory practices) and even when distributionist policies are proposed, they tend to be community-focused, "left-wing" and "right-wing" economics don't really make sense. The DUP and UUP tend to be "right-wing" economically, but mainly because "right-wing" economic policies favor wealthier Protestants over poorer Catholics on average, and the reverse for Sinn Fein and the SDLP. The Alliance tends to try to view economic issues outside of a community lens, which can mean being less dogmatically left- or right-wing. Stormont doesn't actually have that much power in setting economic policy for Northern Ireland anyway, so economic positions aren't particularly prominent.

[Tintrlvr]

It's interesting to see so clearly on a map like that the UUP being stronger in Antrim while the DUP is stronger in Down. That's certainly not a historical pattern!

[Tintrlvr]

Think a northern Irish Labour would do well if funded well and allowed to exist I been told they are a slot of left wingers forced to vote for the two right wing unionist parties because of the union issues surely then and the ones that vote alliance would prefer a better alternative

This was the case like 60, 70 years ago, but the younger disaffected union vote is pretty well taken by Alliance now. Different economy these days.

Also, being more unionist than the Alliance is pretty gross and inherently a right-wing domain. Labour certainly wants nothing to do with that and never really has historically.