Belfast South (UK Parliament Constituency) - History

History

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Belfast South tended to elect 'rebel unionists' such as William Johnston, who famously defied a ban on Orange marches, and Thomas Sloan, founder of the Independent Orange Order.

Belfast South, centred on the River Lagan contains some of Belfast's most exclusive residential districts as well as Queen's University Belfast, and the overall tenor of the constituency is middle-class - young, trendy and cosmopolitan towards the city centre, with Northern Ireland's biggest concentrations of both students and ethnic minorities, and settled and prosperous further out. Despite this, significant pockets of inner-city working class areas such as the Markets and a number of isolated suburban estates are in the constituency.

There has been particularly rapid demographic change in Belfast South over the past 20 years, change which seems to be continuing.

Belfast South traditionally had a unionist majority though the nationalist vote is considerable. There have also been strong votes for other parties such as the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, the Conservatives and the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. The seat has also seen a steady series of candidates backed by groups who aspire to support the British Labour Party despite its prior ban on membership and organisation in Northern Ireland, though their results have been minimal. Until the 1990s the main focus of attention has been on contests between unionist candidates.

In the February 1974 general election the seat was won by Robert Bradford of the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party on a united anti-Sunningdale Agreement slate with the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party. He defeated Rafton Pounder, the sitting Unionist MP who defended his seat as a pro-Assembly unionist. Bradford held the seat for the next seven years, though in February 1978 he and the rump of Vanguard reunited with the Ulster Unionists. At the end of 1981 Bradford was assassinated by the IRA in a Belfast community centre while hosting a political surgery.

The subsequent by-election garnered much interest as it was expected that the Democratic Unionist Party would take the seat, building on their steady rise which had seen them gain both Belfast North and Belfast East at the previous general election. However in the event the DUP came third, behind the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland and the UUP's candidate, Martin Smyth won the seat, holding it until 2005. The by-election was extremely significant at the time in that it was the first at which the DUP tide ebbed.

In the 2001 general election less than 50% of voters voted for unionist parties for the first time in its history, but this has been attributed to a collapse in the vote for the small Progressive Unionist Party as well as to Smyth's fierce opposition to the Good Friday Agreement which is estimated to have sent many pro-Agreement unionist voters to vote tactically for the Social Democratic and Labour Party.

In January 2005 Smyth announced that he would be retiring at the 2005 general election, raising speculation both as to whom the Ulster Unionists would field in succession to him and what effect a different candidate would have upon their share of the vote. The UUP selected Assembly member Michael McGimpsey, albeit with a highly controversial and bitter selection. The aftermath saw McGimpsey repudiated by many prominent local and national Ulster Unionists, including both Smyth and former UUP leader James Molyneaux. The DUP selected Jimmy Spratt and offered an electoral pact to the UUP that would give each party a free run at one out of South Belfast and Fermanagh and South Tyrone. This offer was rejected by the UUP.

In the event, the DUP and UUP both fielded candidates which split the vote, while the nationalist vote mainly went for the SDLP over Sinn Féin, with the result that the SDLP took the seat despite a majority of votes cast for unionist candidates.

In 2010, Sinn Féin opted not to stand against the SDLP in order to avoid splitting the nationalist vote. This effort was successful as the SDLP won the seat with a majority of 6,000. This was also the seat in which the Alliance Party had their second-best showing, polling 15% of the votes.