Election 2023 - Newry, Mourne and Down: Despite talk of unity DUP and UUP battling it out on minority-unionist council

Here is how the council election results of 2019 broke down (with changes compared with 2014 in brackets):

Sinn Fein: 16 (+2), SDLP: 11 (-3), Ind: 5 (+2), UUP: 4 (+1), DUP: 3 (-1), Alliance: 2 (+/- 0), and Ukip: 0 (-1).

However, several switches of allegiance by councillors since 2019 have radically altered the picture, so that right now here’s what the unionist party bloc looks like: DUP: 5, UUP: 2, TUV: 1.

Henry Reilly, formerly with UUP, Ukip, TUV, and independent, is now a DUP candidate.

“The DUP has been getting a really good reception, all our candidates are saying the same thing,” he said.

“I think it’s Jeffrey Donaldson – he’s excelled as a leader. I think he’s steady and upfront with people and that’s resonating throughout the pro-Union community, and I think there’s even a degree of respect for him from the nationalist community as well, because he’s not a headbanger you know – he’s a sensible, steady, reliable guy.”

If the DUP can return five councillors again, he said, it may give them chairmanship of the council for one year, and vice-chairmanship twice. “We’ve never had that. I was the last unionist chairman – back in 2005! Because unionism has been so divided and split up down here, we haven’t had that premier position on the council. One thing we do get on the doorstep is this craving for one big strong unionist party.”

UUP candidate Robert Burgess painted a different picture. “We’ve knocked a lot of doors and we’re getting a good response on the doors this time,” he said.

“I think the DUP are missing out a touch in not going back in and making Stormont work. That’s what I’m getting on the doors time and time again.

“There’s actually a lot of DUP people saying they’re very disappointed in the way they’ve handled all this.”

As for the idea of unionist unity, Mr Burgess says a UUP-DUP pact had been suggested by the UUP, but was rejected by the DUP.

TUV candidate Harold McKee said it is “intolerable” the Kilkeel fishing fleet, under the NI Protocol and Windsor Framework, is treated as foreign vessels in their own port.

He said ratepayers are concerned about the “running down of services” at Daisy Hill Hospital, with no replacement yet for the local GP surgery, which is working its six-month notice. He pledged to be “a strong voice for unionists” but sees little prospect of the 70% nationalist majority changing.