In one of the biggest upsets of the election, the independent unionist, Alex Easton, easily won North Down.

Mr Easton, who has long been a popular MLA in the constituency, was seen as a possible victor in this election, but few pundits thought he could win with the ease that he did.

While there has been a clear majority of unionist votes in North Down in every previous Westminster election, that advantage over Alliance shrank significantly in 2019 when Stephen Farry surged to 45% of the vote, easily the party’s biggest ever margin in the area and enough to become MP.

Thus when it became clear that both Colonel Tim Collins for the Ulster Unionists and Alex Easton, who lost to Mr Farry in 2019 by 3,000 votes, would be in the fray it seemed that it would be very hard for either to win if Mr Farry retained his vote share.

placeholder image — Alex Easton, Independent Unionist candidate, gives an at times tearful speech after he defeats Stephen Farry for the North Down constituency at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, during the count for the 2024 general election. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Unionists had been hoping that the return of Green and SDLP candidates to the race (both parties did not contest North Down five years ago) would deprive Mr Farry of enough votes to defeat him. In the event they got less than 2,000 votes between them, but Mr Farry lost more votes than that, seeing his vote total drop significantly by almost 5,000 votes from his 2019 tally.

In a tearful speech early yesterday morning, Mr Easton said his father had always believed in him. Mr Easton's mother and father, both aged in their 80s, died following a fire at a property in Bangor in January 2023 .

Earlier in the evening as he appeared to be polling well, Mr Easton said: “I have waited all my life for this moment.”

Mr Farry said he had a “disappointing” night and the party would reflect on the overall result over the weekend.

Just before 3am, Mr Farry all but conceded and said Mr Easton had “rebranded himself successfully” as an independent.

“I look back at the last five years with a lot of pride, we have achieved a lot of things and I think it was very important that I stood by my vision and my values for North Down and indeed for Northern Ireland and further afield,” he said. “I've been in politics now for the best part of 30 years and I've had far more ups than downs. I go in to politics – we all do – knowing it's a very difficult trade to be in, there's lots of external factors that come into play.”

His comments came after the retired UUP candidate and retired colonel Tim Collins also conceded, and put the reason for falling short on people being more interested in local issues such as “potholes and hedges” instead of international affairs.

However, he increased the Ulster Unionist vote by almost 2,000 votes on 2019.

North Down

Alex Easton (Independent) 20,913

Stephen Farry (Alliance) 13,608

Tim Collins (UUP) 6,754

Barry McKee (Green) 1,247

Déirdre Vaughan (SDLP) 657

Chris Carter (Independent) 117

Majority 7,305

Turnout: 55%