Unionism will need to learn lessons from local election, leaders warn

There have been early indications that voter turnout in Northern Ireland’s local elections is down slightly in areas viewed as having a unionist majority, and up slightly in areas regarded as predominantly nationalist or republican.

As DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson argued his party was “holding up well”, he said that a “doom and gloom” message from other parties may have resulted in low turnout in unionist areas.

Sir Jeffrey said that if Sinn Fein emerges as the largest party in the council elections, “there are lessons that unionism needs to learn”.

“We can’t go on with a situation where turnout in unionist areas is significantly lower than in nationalist areas, you can’t go on with a situation where the unionist vote is continually splitting and splintering,” he said.

“The result of that is that seats are gifted to Sinn Fein and to others when the unionist vote is split, and when that unionist vote doesn’t transfer sufficiently.

“So I think we really do need to learn the lessons behind all of this, the DUP without a shadow of a doubt is by far the largest unionist party and I think that unionism needs to look at where it’s going and regroup around a strong voice for unionism, and see more co-operation between unionist parties.”

UUP leader Doug Beattie suggested that the unionist vote share as a whole needed to be examined, but said that his party would not switch from its style of politics.

When asked whether the TUV would impact vote share for the UUP and DUP, Mr Beattie said the unionist vote share as a whole needs to be examined.

He said the TUV had “stood on what they believe” and, if elected, “will work hard for their communities”.

“The question is will unionism as a whole lose seats in this election, if they do that, it’s a unionism-wide issue that has to be dealt with – as far as my party is concerned, we’ve set our path, I’m not going to change that path.

“We believe that we need to get Northern Ireland working. We are confident unionists, we want to put out a positive, optimistic message and we will continue to do that, nothing will change.”

Although the count is still ongoing, the Alliance Party and Sinn Fein have said that the local elections vote appeared to indicate a support for those who had called for the powersharing institutions to be revived.

Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said those who had not voted had sent a strong message that should not be ignored.

“The nationalist turnout is much stronger, often 10-15% higher than in predominantly unionist areas,” she said.

“That should cause unionism concerns because if they are not motivating their people by this kind of negative campaign they have been running, then they need to think long and hard about what will motivate their voters to come out and vote for them.

“Certainly when I was at the doors at constituencies right across Northern Ireland, unionist voters were saying very clearly to me that even if they weren’t voting Alliance, they weren’t voting DUP because they felt the DUP had let them down and not going in and doing the jobs they were elected to do.”

She added: “You can discount those people and say they didn’t vote so they don’t matter, but actually they do because the lack of those people coming out to vote has had a direct impact on the outcome of these elections without a doubt.”

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said it would be “a difficult day” for his party due to the size of the support for Sinn Fein.

“We can feel and we could feel just a lot of people particularly within nationalism very angry, very fed up, wanting to send a message to the DUP to get back to work,” he told UTV.

“I think a lot of people felt that the best way to do that was to vote for Sinn Fein, and I think this was always going to happen. They will have a very big vote across the north.”

“I think they’re sending a message to the DUP and they will have done it, I think, in very big numbers.

“I really do hope that the DUP listen, because what people are saying, no matter what their background is, they’re saying they want politicians to get back into Stormont, to get to work, to deal with the crisis in our health service and in our economy, and the messing around really needs to stop.”

Sinn Fein’s vice-president Michelle O’Neill said her party’s reported gains were a result of people wanting “to look towards positive leadership, people who are looking towards the future, people who are trying to genuinely deliver for all the people in our society”.