Election 2023: CLIP - MLA says Northern Irish politics is moving towards three main blocs: Sinn Fein, DUP, and Alliance

At time of writing, Alliance was emerging as the third-biggest political force on Northern Ireland’s councils, having already become the third biggest party in Stormont in the last election, while the SDLP and UUP continue to sink.

Here are the latest council results Province-wide.

In this video, Mr Blair hails the victory of Alliance in the traditional unionist stronghold of Ballyclare, and looks at the bigger picture, saying “there’s no question the last number of elections have indicated a significant electoral shift towards three main voting blocs… it looks like things are heading in that direction”.

More from this reporter:

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• The 'Northern Irish Elon Musk' adds best part of £1 billion to his wealth as he tops the Ulster names on the 2023 Rich List

• What is in Ireland's new so-called 'thought crime' bill, how many years in jail can you get, and which parties are backing it?

• Ex-nuclear submarine commander dubs Irish government 'freeloaders' over lack of military power and dependence on UK and NATO

• Detectives trying to solve attempted murder of John Caldwell now have 16,667 days'-worth of CCTV footage

• Peter Brooke: Death of former Northern Ireland Secretary who coined phrase 'Britain has no selfish or strategic interest in NI' and believed IRA was unlikely to be beaten by force

• Brexit: Entirety of UK will have 'not for EU' printed on goods as James Cleverly insists 'Northern Ireland is as much part of UK as north Essex'