Dear Mr Parsley …

"Please may we have our £43,353 back?

Yours sincerely,

Alliance Party"

That is how much the members and supporters of the Alliance Party paid to promote the Parsley brand in the recent European elections – just before Parsley decided that, on second thoughts, he really was a Tory after all.

It happens that £43,353 is almost half of the Alliance party's annual income from Assembly allowances, at least as far as its published accounts are concerned. Perhaps the party also raises some money from membership fees, but that is unlikely to add up to very much. The £94,472 that Alliance gets from the Assembly is more than spent on salaries and other items, leaving a deficit.

So Parsley presumably bled the party close to death in his doomed attempt to get elected to the European Parliament. And then deserted to the Tories!

Next year the Alliance Party, like all others in Northern Ireland, will have to contest elections. That costs money. Lots of money. Part of the expense is incurred in creating brand awareness of the party, and of the candidate. In 2009 the Alliance Party spent £43,353 creating public awareness for an unknown first-time councillor from North Down – a man who had previously received a total of 343 votes in his whole political career!

That man will probably stand in 2010 as the Tory candidate in North Down, with his public profile created and financed by the Alliance Party.

Of course defections and betrayals are not new in politics, and there is no point in crying foul – politics is a game for big boys. But there must be a lot of Alliance members and supporters who gave generously this year to try to promote their party and its candidate. Let's hope they remember just how that candidate treated them and their money when they enter the polling booth next year.

Irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant

Northern Ireland's three MEPS, recently elected, are all irrelevant in the European Parliament.

One (Bairbre de Brún) is a member of the leftist Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left (GUE/ NGL), which with 35 members (4.8% of the total) is only the sixth largest group in the Parliament.

Another (Jim Nicholson) is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), a breakaway from the European People's Party. The ECR, with 55 seats (7.5% of the total) is the fourth-equal largest group. But the EPP, that Nicholson used to be in before he followed David Cameron out into the wilderness, is the largest group by far, has just seen one of its number elected President of the European Parliament, and will dominate proceedings for 5 years. Nicholson, meanwhile, will achieve nothing.

The last Northern Irish MEP (Dianne Dodds) is not a member of any group, and falls into the rag-tag 'non-attached' category, giving her neither power nor position. She'll enjoy the salary and Brussels' fine restaurants, but she is a political nothing.


Luckily no-one in Northern Ireland appreciates how important the European Parliament is in their lives, and how its influence is growing. Otherwise the voters might be a bit unhappy about having elected three completely irrelevant members.

European Parliament election wrap-up

This blog enjoys an election as much as anyone else – even a fairly irrelevant one like the recent election for the European Parliament. The EP itself is, of course, becoming increasingly important, although this fact has yet to really filter into the consciousnesses of most local politicians (which is why the parties stand only B-list politicians for the EP). However, with only three MEPs spread over three parties and three EP groups, Northern Ireland's EP representation is utterly irrelevant. Once in Strasbourg they will disappear from sight, despite their parties' attempts to pretend that they are running Europe!

After running stories on the EP election since February 4 it is now time to wrap it up and look forward to the next election, for Westminster.

Before leaving the EP behind though, it is interesting to note that almost all of what this blog wrote in February came to pass, with the exception of Jim Allister's performance, which was much better than expected.

In February this blog wrote that:

"The breakdown of the vote in June's European Parliament election between the unionist block and the nationalist block will probably not differ much from the breakdown in other elections" – and in fact the outcome was almost indistinguishable from the 2004 EP election.

" … the relative strengths of the two blocks are approximately: Unionist 50%, Nationalist 43%" – and the outcome was 49% unionist, 42.2% nationalist.

" … this should translate again into two unionist seats and one nationalist seat" – not such a brave prediction, but nonetheless true.

"… Jim Allister, by sheer persistence and good timing, has managed to remain a serous threat to the DUP. While few expect him to hold his seat, the DUP are concerned that he will steal their more extremist voters and consign them to an ignominious scramble for the third seat" – which is exactly what happened!

" … The DUP may then suffer the double indignity of failing to keep Sinn Féin from topping the poll and having to depend on transfers from minor party candidates, which might not come. When the DUP candidate is eventually elected, he or she may have lost considerable face in the process" – exactly as came to pass.

" … The SDLP vote should hold steady" – and indeed, after dropping from 28% in 1999 to 16% in 2004, it remained almost unchanged at 16.2% in 2009.

" … Historically the 'Alliance and other' vote has tended to be around 8-9% in EP elections, and this time should be no different" – it was, in fact, 8.8% - exactly in the range predicted (though the Green portion was higher than this blog expected – 3.3% instead of 1%).

Enough blowing of our own trumpet. There were other sources of soft predictions, including the bookies. Northern Ireland has no reliable polls for most elections, so this blog relied heavily on the odds quoted by the bookies, particularly Paddy Power. And the outcome that those odds pointed towards was almost perfectly correct. The bookies predicted victory for the three candidates who won, and predicted correctly that Bairbre de Brún would top the poll. On the unpredictable performance of Jim Allister the bookies called it correctly – as polling day approached, they were quoting their shortest odds (i.e. representing what they thought was most likely) for a vote above 60,000 – and he scored 66,197.

As Allister's odds shortened, Dodd's lengthened, and that turned out to be exactly how the vote fell – Allister's votes appeared to have come entirely at Dodds' expense.

The lesson that this blog has learned is that, in the absence of reliable polling, the best predictor for the outcome of an election is how people are prepared to risk their cash. This lesson will be applied, of course, during the next election campaign – which should be starting very soon.

Who votes for Alliance, and why?

The Alliance Party has been around since 1970, and while it has rarely come close to achieving electoral success, it manages to hang on nonetheless. It has a core of voters that comes perilously close to insignificance at times before bouncing back a little. In its early days the party received percentages as high as 14.4%, but, as the graph below shows, the trend is unmistakably downward (it should be noted that in some elections Alliance has not stood in all constituencies – particularly in 1974 (February) when they stood in only three out of 12):


The graph shows a regular dip in the Alliance vote every five years – these are the European Parliament elections. Obviously many Alliance voters, knowing that their vote is going to be transferred anyway, either do not vote at all, or skip the pointless Alliance vote and go directly to their second preference.

Nonetheless, in the recent European Parliament election it received 26,699 votes (5.5%) – despite having no realistic chance of winning a seat. This number must represent a hard core of Alliance supporters who are determined to fly the flag of their party regardless. This level of 'hard core' voters is seen more clearly in the second graph, which looks at Alliance Party votes and percentages in elections apart from European Elections:


Here it can be seen that the decline seems to have reached a floor of around 4-5% of the total, and an absolute vote of around 30,000. The outcome of the 2009 European election for Alliance was entirely consistent with this.

But who were the 26,699 people who voted for the lliance party last week, and why did they give their first preference vote to a candidate who was never going to be elected?

Different elections allow us a different glimpse of the Alliance voter. Westminster elections show us that they are largely concentrated in outer Belfast; South and East Antrim, Lagan Valley, and East Belfast. Few Alliance voters are west of the Bann. This was not always the case – in earlier days the Alliance Party had received small though respectable scores in places like Mid Ulster, Derry and South Down. By 2005, however, the party was no longer even standing in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Foyle, Mid Ulster, Newry and Armagh and West Tyrone. As the west 'greened', it seems that the 'yellow' withdrew.

The Single Transferrable Vote allows us to see which parties are the second choices of the hard core Alliance voters. The recent European Parliament election was revealing in this respect. The Alliance and Green candidates were eliminated together (causing, unfortunately, a difficulty separating their transfers, but given the two parties similarities it is likely that their transfer patterns were not hugely different).

Of the 42,463 votes cast for the Alliance and Green candidates, some 7,548 did not transfer – these were the hardest of the hard core. But 34,915 transferred as follows:

Jim Allister (TUV) – 4,284 votes (12% of the transfers)
Diane Dodds (DUP) – 2,914 (8% of the transfers)
Alban Maginness (SDLP) – 16,325 (47% of the transfers)
Jim Nicholson (UUP) – 11,392 (33% of the transfers)

Thus over 20% of Alliance and Green transfers went, as a second preference, to hardline unionist candidates. Less than half went to the only other pro-EU candidate in the election (Maginness). In terms of tribal blocks, 53% of the votes that transferred went to unionists and 47% went to the sole nationalist, Maginness (de Brún having already been elected).

This presents a strange picture of the Alliance vote. Nominally moderate, nominally pro-EU, nominally non-sectarian – nonetheless over one in 5 of the Alliance and Green transfers went to overtly tribal, strongly anti-EU candidates.

So while much of the Alliance Party's early vote (from the 1970s) has drifted away from the party ­ either towards electoral apathy or the other, tribal, parties, one would expect the hard core that remains to be made up of committed centrists, pro-Europeans and anti-sectarians. Yet over 20% of them transfer their vote to precisely the types of candidates that should be anathema to them – and they transfer thus in preference to the more moderate SDLP or UUP candidates. Perhaps some Alliance voters are not as far removed from the tribal hatreds as they pretend?

Election fall-out: Part 3

The UUP and its Tory friends are trying to spin Jim Nicholson's 17.1% score in the European election as a vindication of their non-merger.

They are wrong. Nicholson's score was abysmal, and they know it.

The big story of this election, overshadowing everything else, was the collapse of the DUP vote – from 31.9% to 18.2% – but despite such a wealth of unionist disillusionment and potential new voters the UUP managed to add just 0.5% to their score! Dodds managed to alienate 87,415 voters, but Nicholson attracted none of them – in fact his vote declined by 8,271 (only the lower turnout saved him from a reduced percentage too).

Nicholson's boast was that the UUP-Tory non-merger would attract new voters – in other words, in addition to the core UUP and Tory vote there should have been additional votes. But while the number of Tory voters in Northern Ireland is hard to pin down (sometimes they stand, sometimes they don't, sometimes partially), there must be a Tory electorate of at least 0.5% (their score in the 2007 Assembly election, where they stood in only 9 constituencies). So Nicholson's vote looks suspiciously like the UUP vote plus the Tory vote, plus … well, nothing.

Faced with the open goal that the DUP melt-down represented, the UUP failed to score. They did not recover the voters that had defected from the UUP to the DUP in the past decade, they did not benefit from Dodds appalling campaign, they did not present the voters with a new or attractive alternative, and they did not benefit from any Cameron bounce. They stagnated.

UCUNF has clearly failed to make any impact on its first big test. Other tests will come, including a Westminster election within a year, and Assembly and District Council elections in 2011, but on the evidence of the European election UCUNF remains simply the UUP in different clothes.

Election fall-out: Part 2

It is evident from the European election results that the main blocks in Northern Irish politics (unionist, nationalist, other) are marking time. In terms of the first preference votes received none of the three blocks moved by more than 0.4%: unionism increased from 48.6% in 2004 to 49% in 2009; nationalism decreased from 42.3% to 42.2%, and the 'others' decreased from 9.1% to 8.8%.

It is also interesting to look beyond the first preferences, to see where the votes (which are transferrable, after all) eventually end up. In other words, when a voter's first preference is either elected or eliminated, where does the vote go to? This allows a slightly nuanced view of voters preferences – allowing us for example, to see that some voters gave a 'principled' first preference to, say, the Green Party, and then reverted to their 'real' preference.

Once all of the votes reached their final resting place, the outcome was as follows:

Unionist: 253,412 votes – 52.3% of the total
Nationalist: 223,612 votes – 46.1% of the total
Non-transferrable: 7,548 votes – 1.6% of the total

This analysis tends to show a slightly smaller gap between unionism and nationalism than that shown by the first preferences. Only 29,800 votes separated the two blocks at the end, a gap of around 6.1% of the votes cast.

For comparison, in 2004 the situation was quite similar. The final unionist vote was 284,378 (51,8%), and the final nationalist vote was 253,072 (46,1%). The difference, therefore, was 31,306 (5,7% of the votes cast).

So the appearances of stagnation at first-preference level appear to hold at final preference level too. Unionism had a good election, but only marginally so, and thanks to the low turnout it should not read too much into it.

Election fall-out: Part 1

Jim Allister did well – better than many had initially thought (but the evidence from the bookies showed that as the campaign progressed more people realised his potential).

However, despite losing his European Parliament seat, he will not be leaving the world of politics behind. In his concession speech yesterday he announced that he would run for the Westminster seat in North Antrim when the eagerly-awaited election is called.

This has truly put the frighteners on the DUP. North Antrim is the DUP constituency par excellence – held by Ian Paisley senior since 1970, and home of many of the more strident party members. It was widely expected that when Paisley senior stands down, he will be succeeded as DUP candidate by his son, Ian Paisley junior. However, Ian junior is not the man his father was, and may have trouble holding the seat even on a good day. With Allister as an opponent it would not be a good day!

Unofficial reports from the European Parliament election count suggest that in the boxes from North Antrim votes for Allister exceeded those for the DUP's candidate, Diane Dodds. If this is true, then the DUP's prospects for holding the seat become uncertain.

The DUP is by far the largest party in North Antrim, scoring around 50% of the vote (54.8% at the last Westminster election), and no other party scores even half of that. However, in the past (as late as 2001) the UUP could reach around 24% of the total, so a greatly reduced DUP vote, and a strong vote for Allister could provide room for a surprise candidate to sneak between them and win the seat. Against this, though, must be placed the reality that since 2001 the UUP vote has shrunk to around 14%. Even with some Cameron-bounce it is very difficult to see a UCUNF victory here.

So the contest will be between Allister and whoever the DUP stand – Paisley senior will be 84 at the next election (assuming it is in June 2010), and is already the oldest member of the British House of Commons. Can they really stand him again? It would look like an act of complete desperation by the DUP, worse even that Arlene Foster standing for Fermanagh District Council. But could Paisley junior beat Allister? Paisley junior is not strikingly popular, either in North Antrim or elsewhere – in the 2007 Assembly election he got 13.8% of the vote, but if his father was not there he could expect to inherit some of his votes.

This will be a very interesting contest to watch.

Though the Westminster election must come first, the same constituencies will be used only one year later for the Assembly election in 2011. So the outcome of the Westminster elections will be minutely scrutinised to gauge the levels of support for the parties and the likely outcome of the 2011 elections. And if Allister fights in North Antrim, it is very likely that other TUV candidates will contest other constituencies in the Westminster election. A concerted attack on the DUP, so soon after their humiliation in the European elections, and so soon before the really important elections of 2011, could overwhelm the DUP. A defeat in North Antrim would be a psychological disaster of greater proportions than the 'disaster' in the European elections.

Karl Marx noted that "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce", and the outflanking of the DUP by Allister is definitely a repeat of the same manoeuvre carried out by the DUP on the UUP. The question is, though, will the repeat of history turn out to be a tragedy for the DUP?

European Parliament election – first results

The proportions of the first preference votes received by each candidate are as follows:

Bairbre de Brún (Sinn Féin): 26.0%
Diane Dodds (DUP): 18.2%
Jim Nicholson (UUP): 17.1%
Alban Maginness (SDLP): 16.2%
Jim Allister (TUV): 13.5%
Ian Parsley (Alliance): 5.5%
Steven Agnew (Green): 3.3%

The proportions of the vote won by the two blocks (and the third 'non-block') in 2009, with the 2004 figures shown also for comparison:

Unionist: 49.0% (2004: 48.6%)
Nationalist: 42.2% (2004: 42.3%)
Other: 8.8% (2004: 9.1%)

These results are superficially identical to those of 2004 – all the changes at block level are less than 0.5% – the unionist proportion has recovered by 0.4%, the nationalist share has dropped by 0.1%, and the 'other' share has dropped by 0.3%. The big stories, though become visible when you look within the blocks.

The biggest story of the election – possible the only real story of the election is the collapse of the DUP vote. The party slumped to only 18.2%, it's lowest ever score in an EP election. The choice of Diane Dodds, and her appalling television appearances, has been blamed, but there is also a level of extreme-unionist rage with the DUP or having gone into the Executive with Sinn Féin. According to the DUP themselves, this election represents a "disaster". And it is – they have lost 87,415 voters (almost 50%) since the last EP election in 2004, some to the TUV and others to apathy. That is a shockingly bad outcome.

The DUP vote has gone in two directions: to the TUV (probably all of Allister's 66,197 votes came from ex-DUP voters) and to the apathetic, or perhaps more accurately, the turned-off.

For the DUP there is a dawning realisation that the TUV represents a genuine constituency, which takes its votes almost directly from the DUP. In order to stave off further losses and defections the DUP will probably move sharply to the right to recapture the extreme-unionists who have voted for the TUV. So for the foreseeable future (at least until after the 2011 year-of-elections) there will be minimal cooperation with Sinn Féin – no devolution of policing and justice, no Irish language measures, no concession on education, nothing. How this will play in nationalist circles is difficult to say. Having frozen the work of the Executive for much of 2008 in return for unrevealed promises from the DUP – which it seems have not yet been honoured and may now not be – Sinn Féin is not likely to be feeling charitable. However, freezing the Executive again may benefit the DUP who will then be seen as 'confronting Sinn Féin'. What else can Sinn Féin do?

Jim Allister, once seen as a mere thorn in the side of the DUP, received 28% of the unionist vote. The size of his vote has come as a surprise to many, but was signalled by this blog amongst others. By doing so he humiliated the DUP and opened the possibility for the TUV to play the role of extreme-unionist opposition in the three more important elections that must come in the next two years. The role Allister will play may well be the exact same role that the DUP itself played vis-à-vis the UUP in the period 1998-2007. Reports from the count verification say that he received more votes from the North Antrim boxes than the DUP, and he may be tempted to stand there in the upcoming Westminster election. However badly this EP election has stung the DUP, the loss of Ian Paisley's Westminster seat to their nemesis would be like a stake through the heart. There is still a significant constituency of anti-GFA unionists, and they are likely to use all possible means to upset the current arrangements.

A smaller, but still interesting story is the performance of UCUNF. Nicholson received 17.1% of the vote. This represents a small increase with respect to his tally in 2004, but a drop compared with 1999, and calls into question the potential of the UCUNF experiment. While UCUNF will argue that the non-merger is a new development and should be given time to bed down, the candidate, Nicholson, is a very long-standing politician and cannot be considered as a 'new brand'. It seems that he continued to receive the core UUP vote, and probably also received the Tory vote – but since the Tory vote at the most recent election in which they stood (2007 Assembly) was only 3,457, no-one will have noticed. It seems that UCUNF failed to excite the palate of the electorate.

It should be born in mind that the turnout in this election was exceptionally low: 42.8%, which demonstrates a level of apathy amongst the electorate which is not typical for Northern Irish elections. The results of this election cannot, therefore, be used to accurately predict the outcome of Westminster, Assembly or local elections.

Packing his bags

Jim Allister had an active presence on the internet during his five years as an MEP through http://www.jimallister.org/. Articles and speeches, alternately attacking Sinn Féin and his erstwhile colleagues in the DUP, were uploaded almost daily.

But not any longer. The site is bare:

It looks like a house that is vacant – the movers have been and taken away everything, the house is empty and uninhabited. Jim has packed up and moved out! He obviously has very little confidence in tomorrow's vote.

European Election betting – a last word

This blog's favoured bookie, Paddy Power, has stopped quoting odds for the European election in Northern Ireland. Another bookie, William Hill, continues to offer odds on the likelihood of the various candidates to win a seat, as follows:

Bairbre De Brun (SF) - 1/66
Diane Dodds (DUP) - 1/33
Jim Nicholson (UUP) - 1/10
Jim Allister (TUV) - 4/1
Alban Maginness (SDLP) - 6/1
Ian Parsley (Alliance) - 33/1
Steven Agnew (Green Party) - 33/1

This corresponds fairly closely, both in terms of order of preference and actual odds, with the last-known odds quoted by Paddy Power. Since this blog has not followed William Hill's odds up to now, it is hard to say whether the differences (slightly shorter odds on Dodds, Nicholson and Allister, slightly longer odds on de Brún, Maginness, Agnew and Parsley) reflect a change since Paddy Power's last-known odds (29 May), or whether they represent a consistent pattern of slightly more unionist-friendly odds. Perhaps Paddy Power is the bookie of choice of nationalists, and William Hill the choice of unionists?

We'll find out on 8 June.

There's something about Deirdre

The defection of Deirdre Nelson from the DUP to the Tory Party yesterday is something of a mystery. Her presence in the DUP was, in itself, somewhat strange, but her departure – right before the European Parliament election and thus designed to cause maximum damage to her ex-party – leaves even more questions.

The daughter of active trade unionists, a move to the Tory party would not seem obvious. But the DUP press office is spinning this as sour grapes. The official party press release says that:

"Deidre Nelson is a political reject whose prospects in the party had been curtailed for a number of reasons over the last few years. In light of her inability to attract support within the party it has been widely known for sometime that she was seeking position with another party. It is a rare occurrence for people to join a sinking ship No tears will be shed over the departure of this political opportunist. Indeed it is likely she would have been booted out in the immediate aftermath of the election."

Nelson claims her decision to leave the DUP was because "she was unhappy with her party since the departure of Ian Paisley Snr", but there are rumours (no doubt peddled unofficially by the DUP) that she actually defected because she failed to be selected by the DUP as their European election candidate, and that that did not suit her ego, which "believes her talent has never been properly recognised and promoted" within the DUP.

Nelson was the only other candidate to be the DUP's EP candidate, but was apparently comprehensively beaten by Dodds in the selection process. Nonetheless she continued to be a DUP member, and continued to campaign for Dodds, almost up to the eve of her defection. Her unhappiness since the departure of Paisley senior had not, apparently, dampened her desire to represent the DUP in Strasbourg for the next five years.

Only time will tell why Nelson defected, and only time will tell whether her defection was in her interests. The Tory party have not yet agreed their joint UCUNF list of candidates for the next Assembly elections in 2011, or the elections to the new local councils, also in 2011. While Nelson may be hoping that her timely defection moves her up the list, she will be facing an uphill struggle in her North Antrim constituency where the UUP has only one MLA (and barely one quota) who has not indicated that he is interested in retiring. The 2011 local elections may well be her target, but in 2005 within the boundaries of the new Mid Antrim district (in which Nelson's Ballymena will fall), the UUP polled less than half the vote of the DUP. And there will be quite a few sitting UUP councillors from Ballymena, Larne and Carrickfergus who may not want to give way to a new-comer defecting from the DUP.

However, Nelson has defected not to the UUP, but to the Tories. This may have been a clever strategic move, as the Tories have little presence in North Antrim or Mid Antrim, and have not recently stood in either constituency. She has placed herself at the head of a short short-list (comprising herself alone). Whether she can get elected for the Tories in this very DUP-friendly area, knowing that transfers from the DUP are unlikely, is harder to say.

More betting odds

As the election approaches, the betting activity increases. The odds quoted by Paddy Power have changed again.

For the book on 'Northern Ireland - to top the poll?', Paddy Power are now quoting de Brún's odds at 2/11, which is getting very close to what punters might call a dead cert. A bet of €10 at those odds would return you only €11.82.

Diane Dodds odds on being the 'woman who tops the poll' have lengthened yet again, to 3/1. Since the start of the formal election campaign the bookies have been continuously lengthening her odds – from 11/10 to 2/1 and now 3/1. If the bookies and their punters are correct, the DUP's "disaster" may be about to become reality.

Paddy Power have added an additional book on 'Northern Ireland - to win a seat?'. Here, as might be expected, the odds on both de Brún and Dodds are very short; both are quoted at 1/50, which would return a profit of only 10 cents to anyone willing to bet €10. Interestingly, the next shortest odds are Jim Nicholson's, at 1/12. Both Allister and Maginess are on 5/1, and the two also-rans have odds of: Agnew 20/1 and Parsley 25/1.

So it seems that the wisdom of the punter, as reflected through the betting odds is that both de Brún and Dodds will win seats easily, though de Brún will top the poll, and that the third seat will be taken by Nicholson. Maginness will remain 'always a bridesmaid and never a bride', while Allister will slink off to plot his next move. If, as the odds predict, Parsley scores even fewer votes than Agnew, it surely is time for the Alliance Party to take a long hard look at itself.

A constitutional referendum?

That is apparently what Peter Robinson thinks the European Parliament election on 4 June actually is.

At the launch of the DUP manifesto, Peter Robinson gave a speech in which he said that: "The European election is the only Province-wide poll and is regarded as a test of Northern Ireland’s constitutional position."

So the cat, never well hidden, is out of the bag. The DUP really do see all elections as part of the constant process of constitutional referenda. They are right, of course, but nonetheless it must be worrying them, as election after election sees unionism's slim lead being whittled away.

Increase in the electorate – who gains?

The SDLP has received some research from American researcher Dr Michael Moriarty (quoted in the Irish News) which suggests that they could benefit from the recent increase in the electoral register. Ronan McCay, SDLP Director of Organisation and Election Planning, writes that this research implies that:

" … we’re very much in the race. The Irish News article shows that this election is game on, that it’s in our hands and that it can be done."

Dr Moriarty's findings are, as yet, not in the public domain. But the parts quoted in the Irish News and on the SDLP Youth website are simply erroneous.

The article states that:

"Research for the SDLP by an American, Dr Michael Moriarty, points to 65 000 potential new voters on the register and claims that the breakdown is approximately 50 000 nationalist and 15 000 unionist. He adds that the party needs an additional 20 000 votes to win a seat."

However, a very quick consultation of the statistics published by the Electoral Office shows that, since the most recent election (the 2007 Assembly election) the electorate has only increased by 49,949. Even if Dr Moriarty is using the electoral statistics from the last European Parliament election in 2004 he is wrong – the increase since then has been 85,184.

Dr Moriarty's methodology for estimating the breakdown of the increase is unknown. But it is an established fact that deaths since 2007 have been around 30,000, and around two-thirds of these have been Protestants (and thus presumably unionists). New entrants to the electorate (those reaching their 18th birthday) have been around 50,000, of which slightly more are Catholic than Protestant. Putting these two figures together it is possible to estimate that the 'natural increase' in the electorate since 2007 has been around 20,000. Of these, largely due to the Protestant majority amongst the elderly, around 17,000 are Catholic and 3,000 are Protestant. So the net natural increase of Catholics in the electorate is less than 15,000.

Yet the electorate increased by 49,949 during the period. Evidently the Electoral Office has improved their registration rates, and it has to be assumed that these extra registrations are more or less representative of the areas in which they live. Multiplying the increase by the known voting breakdown (unionist or nationalist) in 2007 allows us to estimate how many of these new registrations were probably unionist and how many were nationalist.

Unfortunately for the SDLP (and nationalism as a whole) the increase in registrations was slightly stronger in unionist areas, so the effect of the improvement has marginally helped unionism.

Of the approximately 50,000 new voters in 2009, 20,000 are due to 'natural increase', and 30,000 are due to improvements in the register.

The 20,000 (natural increase) break down as 17,000 nationalists and 3,000 unionists.
The 30,000 (additional registrations)break down as 14,000 nationalists and 16,000 unionists.

The total increases in the potential voters for the two tribes is, therefore:
- Nationalism – plus 31,000
- Unionism – plus 19,000
Thus giving nationalism a net increase of 12,000 since 2007.

But turnout rates in the European elections are low (51.7% in 2004), and there is no reason to think that this election will buck that trend in any significant way. So the actual net increase in the nationalist vote may be barely 6,000 – shared between Sinn Féin and the SDLP.

If the SDLP needs 20,000 extra votes to win the third seat, it will not succeed.

Jim Allister, hot on their heels

At the start of the European Parliament election campaign there was a hope – maybe even a belief – amongst the DUP that Jim Allister was a hopeless candidate. Without the DUP machine, they perhaps thought, he was reduced to a one-man band, supported only by his family and die-hard supporters, and lacking the finance to mount a successful campaign to retain his seat.

Well, the sheer number of his posters shows that he has both the financial and human resources to mount a decent campaign.

And it seems to be paying off!

At the start of the campaign the popular belief (as expressed, quite accurately, in the willingness of punters to wager their hard-earned cash) was that he would, in all likelihood, receive between 30,000 and 40,000 first preference votes. Not a bad score and one that might embarrass the DUP by pushing them into second place behind Sinn Féin’s Bairbre de Brun.

After a few weeks of real campaigning, though, the popular feeling has shifted dramatically. The punter now believes – and is willing to stake his money on it – that Allister will receive over 60,000 votes. The graph below shows the situation at 13 May, and the situation today. The height of the line reflects the odds on Allister receiving a particular score (for convenience odds of, e.g., 7/1 have been converted into 1 divided by 7. Hence the shorter the odds the higher the line):


It can be clearly seen that in less than two weeks the punter has shifted his (or occasionally her) belief in Allister’s vote-gathering ability significantly upwards.

This presents real problems for both of the other unionist candidates. Every vote that Allister gets is a vote that they will not get. And let’s not forget – in the last European election in 2004 there were only 260,000 unionist votes. So if Allister takes 60,000 of the unionist votes, this leaves relatively few to be divided between the two other unionists. If Allister’s votes fail to transfer in large numbers to Jim Nicholson of the UUP – who was barely 4,000 votes ahead of the SDLP last time – then the unionist nightmare of two nationalist seats may become reality.

Linked to Allister’s increasing share of the unionist vote is a serious weakening of Diane Dodds position. From earlier odds of 11/10 to top the poll Dodds odds have now deteriorated to 2/1. It seems that the punter believes that Allister’s additional votes will come from Dodds as well as Nicholson (whose odds have also lengthened, from 10/1 to 12/1). Allister seems to be successfully turning this campaign into a three-horse race for the unionist vote, with wholly unpredictable results.

Jim Nicholson … oh dear!

Things seem to be going from bad to worse for Jim Nicholson and the UUP.

Firstly, in the middle of Nicholson's campaign for the European Parliament election his party's sole MP, Sylvia Hermon, made it clear that she was opposed to the UUP's partnership with the English Tories, and would not stand under the UCUNF banner – thereby effectively distancing herself from both the UCUNF project and from Nicholson. Her timing was such that it can only be seen as a vote of no confidence in the Tory link-up, and, as a relatively popular woman, especially amongst the civic unionist wing of the UUP, such an anti-endorsement can only cost Nicholson votes.

Then, several of Nicholson's Euro-colleagues, Tory MEPs Dan Hannan and Roger Helmer, both admittedly on the right wing of the Conservative Party, effectively endorsed Nicholson's rival, Jim Allister. Although both prefaced their endorsement of Allister with polite praise for Nicholson, the very fact that they were effusive about a clear UCUNF rival, rather than dismissive as one ought to be in a closely fought election, spoke volumes. Helmer was careful to stress that he was not endorsing Allister over Jim Nicholson and that if he were voting he would give Allister his second preference vote after Nicholson. But a nod is as good as a wink to a blind man.

And on 18 May it was reported that the UDA's north Belfast leader John Bunting had been spotted erecting Nicholson’s election posters. A UUP spokesman denied the party had received support from loyalist paramilitaries; “We met the UPRG recently and they raised concerns that our association with the Conservative Party would lead to us abandoning working-class communities. Clearly the UDA has not endorsed the UUP and neither have we endorsed the UDA,” he said – though the evidence seems to be that the UDA is very much endorsing Nicholson. What Nicholson's Tory friends have to say about receiving support from a senior member of an illegal sectarian terrorist gang is, as yet, unclear. But at the very least one can now be certain that the UUP is not "for all of us", or even that "decent people" vote UUP.

Another huge embarrassment for Nicholson came a day later, when the chairman of the UUP in North Down, Mark Brooks, publicly defected to the DUP. It was bad news for the UUP that he did so, but in the middle of an election campaign it must have hurt badly. Amongst his motives, Brooks said he had been unhappy for some time within the UUP, especially over moves to form an electoral pact with the Conservatives. Ouch … this was the big feather in Nicholson's cap! To add insult to injury, Brooks offered his backing for DUP candidate Diane Dodds in next month’s European election.

Finally (for the time being), Nicholson's new friends in the Tory party have upset the carefully constructed unionist tribal front by declaring that, in the Westminster elections that must come within 12 months, they will not agree to any pacts with the DUP in order to try to re-gain the seats in South Belfast and Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Cameron said there was "no chance" of the joint UUP-Conservative alliance standing aside in either Fermanagh and South Tyrone or South Belfast. While South Belfast certainly hurt the UUP, it was, after all, only won by the SDLP – Fermanagh and South Tyrone, though, is a different story. A seat with a slight nationalist majority, it was nonetheless held from 1983 to 2001 by the UUP, thanks to a unionist pact and a split nationalist vote. More than anything else, though, Fermanagh and South Tyrone was Bobby Sands seat, and even though a generation has passed, the bitter hatreds of rural Northern Ireland continue to fester in the constituency. Stealing the seat back from Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew through a new unionist voting pact would be greeted by unionists all over Northern Ireland as a huge triumph. That the leader of the English Tories has, in a rather blasé manner – and in the middle of an election campaign – effectively announced that such a tribal triumph is likely to be denied, will anger many unionists, and this will, of course, reduce Nicholson's vote and the number of transfers he might receive. And he will need those transfers if he has any chance of being re-elected.

So poor Nicholson must soldier on, assailed from the civic wing of unionism, from the tribal wing of unionism, and even from his friends in the Tory party. The hill he has to climb on June 4 seems to just get higher and steeper every day. If he clings on to the third seat he will be a very lucky man, but every day the chances that he will fail grow a little more.

As further proof of Nicholson's difficulties, the bookies odds on him topping the poll have lengthened from 10/1 a month ago to 12/1 now. The odds offered on both of Nicholson's rivals for that third Euro-seat, Allister of the TUV and Maginness of the SDLP, have remained unchanged, though still longer than those of Nicholson. The bookies estimate of Allister's likely vote, though, has increased significantly. If some of those votes are ex-UUP voters who fail to transfer back to Nicholson, he could be in trouble.

The bookies still favour de Brún

In February this blog first reported on the odds being offered by bookie Paddy Power on the outcome of the European Parliament election. We promised to return to the subject on and off during the campaign.

Now that the list of candidates is known, and the opening gambits have been played, it might be a good time for another look.

Despite a lot of PR-induced clamour, the situation appears to have changed very little. The odds being offered on the number of votes that Jim Allister will receive have not changed at all. Paddy Power's customers expect him to get between 30,000 and 40,000 votes, exactly as in February.

However, in the book on who will top the poll, the odds have slightly shortened for Sinn Féin's Bairbre de Brún, and lengthened for the DUP's Diane Dodds.

In February de Brún was the bookie's favourite to top the poll with odds of 4-5 (this would mean that on a 10 euro bet, you would receive an 18 euro payout, including your initial stake). Diane Dodds' odds were even (i.e. for your 10 euro you would receive 20 in payout). What this meant was that the bookie reckoned that de Brún was more likely to top the poll than Dodds.

Today, however, the odds on de Brún topping the poll have shortened to 4-6 (the payout thus drops to 16.67 euro on a 10 euro take). Dodds' odds have lengthened to 11-10 (increasing the possible payout o 21 euro). This represents an increase in the betters' belief that de Brún will top the poll, and a decrease in their faith in Dodds.

The bad news for the UUP (dressed up as UCUNF) is that all their spin has not changed the punters' opinion of their candidate's chances of topping the poll. 14-1 in February and still 14-1 today. Likewise for the SDLP, Greens and Alliance candidates – there has been no change (and probably no bets placed) since February. It seems the only real competition is between de Brún and Dodds.

Kindergarten politics

Whilst politics in Northern Ireland almost always resembles a primary school playground, for the current European Parliament campaign it seems already to have regressed to the kindergarten.

There are, broadly speaking, three groups competing in the election: unionists, nationalists and 'others'. Some within these groups have seemed more enthusiastic to attack within their group than outside of it.

Unionism has dragged the campaign down as far as it can. The three unionist parties (DUP, UUP-UCUNF, and TUV) have spent more effort in attacking each other than in confronting their ideological foes.

The DUP is fighting a war on two fronts – against their nemesis Jim Allister, who won a seat for them in 2004 and then walked away from them – and against the UUP-Tory hybrid called UCUNF. Despite blustering about 'ensuring a victory for unionism' by topping the poll, what they really want is to take back the seat from Allister, and see off his challenge from the wilder fringes of unionism. But they are afraid to give Allister the oxygen of publicity, and so they rarely, if ever, refer to him – preferring to use the coded language of unionist poll-topping, which in their minds can only be achieved by the DUP.

The UUP has descended quickly to the gutter. From its initial boast of offering a 'vote for change' (despite standing the same drab candidate as they have stood for 20 years!), they have moved directly to intra-unionist cat-fighting by setting up the site www.duppantsonfire.com – a childish site devoted only to attacking their main unionist rivals!

The TUV, of course, exists only to goad the DUP, and spends most of its electoral efforts on them alone. Their manifesto launch contained tirades against the DUP for having entered into the Executive with Sinn Féin:

" … if the DUP were honest their message in this election would be terrorists in government, education in chaos, IRA Army Council intact. What odds. Vote Dodds!"

And the manifesto itself is a litany of complains about the DUP:

"Sadly, the DUP’s neglect of Ulster in Europe continues. Edwin Poots MLA is supposed to represent Northern Ireland on the important Committee of the Regions in Brussels.
In the two years from October 2006 he attended only once! Nigel Dodds MP is supposed to represent Northern Ireland on the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Since 2006 he has attended only once! Is this the abysmal level of non-representation Northern Ireland wants to go back to in the European Parliament? If not, vote Allister 1 – the man interested enough to do the job, and do it well."

"With the two sitting Unionist MEPs defending their seats, it is unfortunate the DUP has seen fit to split the vote."

"The sad truth is that the DUP would rather see Jim Allister out of Europe than Barbara de Brun … "

"… we are wasting millions on pointless cross-border bodies – whose every financial demand has been meekly rubber-stamped by the two DUP Ministers … "

And on, and on, and on …

The Alliance Party has also failed to meet basic standards of political maturity and cooperation. Alliance, which claims to be "a strongly pro-European party" initially declined to advise its voters to transfer to the only other unequivocally pro-EU party – the SDLP. Rather late in the day, it now has "finally established there is more than one pro-EU candidate in this election" – an amazingly grudging statement given the SDLP's history of constructive engagement since 1979! It still stops short of actually advising their voters to transfer to the SDLP, though, leaving observers with the feeling that the Alliance Party would be equally happy with any of the Euro-sceptic unionist candidates as with another 'strongly pro-EU' candidate. It seems that the Alliance Party just cannot throw off their residual unionist tendencies, regardless of how awful the unionist candidates are.

Any party that is prepared to let anti-EU candidates win an election, rather than another party that shares 90% of its principles, clearly has other agendas at work. If, in a European election, the Alliance Party cannot advise its voters to transfer to the only other similar party, this raises questions about their true motivation. Alliance may claim that, as 'liberals' they cannot justify advising voters to transfer to a 'socialist' party – but if the effect is that an additional right-wing unionist anti-EU MEP is elected the effect for Northern Ireland could be strongly negative. Surely, in a spirit of pro-EU cooperation the Alliance Party can leave its petty unionist prejudices out of its decision, and advise its voters to transfer to Alban Maginness. This is, after all, an election for who represents Northern Ireland in the European Parliament – it is not a border poll. So far, the Alliance Party appears to be blind to this rather obvious truth, but there is still time for them to redeem themselves.

Jim Allister standing on the issues (not!)

On 4 June voters in Northern Ireland will get a chance to vote for their three MEPs – Members of the European Parliament. The elected few will enjoy five years of committee work and Plenaries dealing with the minutiae of EU affairs. So, of course, the criteria on which they should be elected should include their positions on the key areas of EU competences.

But, no … apparently one of the candidates, Jim Allister, thinks that people should vote for him to be their MEP in order "to give their verdict on the "obscenity of terrorists in government"." Does he mean 'terrorists' in the European Commission (the only government the European Parliament has any say over)? No, apparently he means Stormont!

"If the people in this province think it is marvellous to have Martin McGuinness as their joint first minister then I'm not their man," he said.

"If they think it is fantastic that Sinn Fein has been able to reduce education to an absolute shambles then they'll want to thank those who gifted them that office. If they think it is acceptable that south Armagh IRA can murder Paul Quinn and their Sinn Fein can continue in government then they will not be voting TUV but if all those things abhor them then I am their man."

So there you have it. A candidate for the European Parliament thinks that the role of an MEP has nothing to do with European affairs, and everything to do with petty Northern Irish politics. Allister insults his electorate by telling them that voting for him can or will have any effect on Northern Irish politics, when it manifestly does not. Does he not know what election this is? It is not an Assembly election, where such statements, predictably extreme as they are, might make some sense. It is a European election, where the voters should expect a sitting MEP to stand on the basis of European issues of relevance in Northern Ireland.

Any voter who is actually interested in European affairs should not vote for Allister, because he clearly has no real interest in Europe.

No surprise candidates for Europe

The definitive list of candidates for the European Parliament election on 4 June has just been published by the Electoral Office. It contains no surprises at all. As already signalled, Colin Duffy did not nominate himself, and neither did any other dissident republican. Despite their claims, neither did Libertas.

The list of candidates is:

Steven Agnew - Green
Jim Allister - TUV
Bairbre de Brún - Sinn Féin
Diane Dodds - DUP
Alban Maginness - SDLP
Jim Nicholson - UCUNF
Ian James Parsley - Alliance Party