Remain reaffirmed: the 2019 European election in Northern Ireland

Abstract

With echoes of the dividing lines of the United Kingdom's 2016 referendum, a majority of voters in Northern Ireland supported pro-Remain candidates in the 2019 European Parliament election. However, whereas the results in many parts of the UK reflected a highly polarised electorate, voters in Northern Ireland appeared more receptive to compromise: a majority of their newly elected MEPs expressed support for the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by the UK government with the EU-the only constituency in the UK where this was the case. The comfortable re-election of Diane Dodds and Martina Anderson affirmed the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin as the dominant unionist and nationalist parties respectively. However, a surge in support for the Alliance Party, which saw Naomi Long win a seat at the expense of the Ulster Unionist Party, marked a notable shift towards the ethno-national centre-ground: one in five first preference votes went to a candidate aligned with neither nationalism nor unionism. This report contextualises the election campaign and considers the implications of the results.

Teaching and learning in Brussels: Sinn Féin’s strategic ‘venue shopping’ approach in the European Parliament

“…The 2019 election was a disappointment on either side of the border for the party. Their vote share declined in the north, and they lost two of their three seats in the Republic of Ireland (Haughey and Pow, 2020). A key test for Sinn Féin's European policy may come in the future through a European treaty ratification referendum in Ireland.…”

“…The party, along with many others on the island of Ireland, points to the fact that Northern Ireland itself (56% in favour of Remain), and in particular its nationalist community (88% in favour of Remain), voted with a strong majority against leaving the EU (Garry, 2016: 2). They have also campaigned on the principle that Northern Ireland being forced to leave along with the rest of the United Kingdom is tantamount to a breach of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), particularly its provisions on citizenship (Haughey and Pow, 2020: 35; McCord Judgement, 2016). In their election manifestos, Sinn Féin has had a marked shift from sporadic critical references to the EU to European integration being positioned as a cornerstone of their Irish unification aspirations, as well as a key instrument in facilitating the Northern Irish peace process in retrospect (Sinn Féin, 2019a: 3, 2019b: 3, 2020: 11).…”

Breaking Walls & Norms: A Report on the UK general election in Northern Ireland, 2019

“…Just weeks later, in the European Parliament elections, patterns evident at the local level were repeated. Alliance leader Naomi Long became the first member of her party to be returned as an MEP (see Haughey and Pow, 2019). Overall, the results of the local and European elections revealed a political landscape in flux as the dual dynamics of Brexit and the impasse at Stormont seemed, to some extent, to be disrupting traditional voting behaviour, Johnson's new Brexit deal then produced the context for a third election of 2019 in Northern Ireland, and the eighth poll in four years for the region.…”