Election 2023: Rare absence of bad news for the UUP as it holds firm in Mid and East Antrim

Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com 
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
Visit Shots! now
Backing the Province-wide trend of bad news for the UUP, the party has equalled its number of councillors from 2019 in Mid and East Antrim.

In 2019, the UUP returned seven councillors. And with the count still ongoing today, it has already matched that.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A new face on the council is Roy Beggs, the long-serving UUP MLA who lost his seat in 2022.

A previous councillor for the old defunct Carrick authority, he returns to local government in Larne Lough with 1,139 first-preference votes (just a few dozen behind his nearest unionist rival there Gregg McKeen).

The SDLP, which had one councillor in 2019, is still sitting on zero as the ballot papers are tallied, while Sinn Fein have doubled their crop of two councillors in 2019 to make four.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The DUP is looking fairly steady, as is the Alliance Party, but with six seats still to be announced, that could change.

Despite holding its own in Mid and East Antrim, the UUP’s overall vote share has shrunk by over 3% and it has lost 16 council seats at time of writing.

More from this reporter:

A map of Mid and East AntrimA map of Mid and East Antrim
A map of Mid and East Antrim