Political Representation
Northern Ireland currently has the following political representation:
- the Northern Ireland Assembly has 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) (currently 55 unionists, 45 nationalists, 9 others), which had its powers restored on 8 May 2007.
- 18 seats in the United Kingdom House of Commons (currently 9 unionist MPs, 8 nationalist MPs and 1 cross community MP)
- there are several unionists but no nationalists or republicans on the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (see List of Northern Ireland members of the Privy Council).
- three seats in the European Parliament (currently two unionist, one republican)
- at local level there are currently 26 district councils - on 22 November 2005 Peter Hain, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced proposals to reduce the number of councils to seven.
Read more about this topic: Demography And Politics Of Northern Ireland
Famous quotes containing the word political:
“The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)