Northern Ireland Labour Party - After Partition

After Partition

After partition the NILP was founded as a socialist political party by groups including the Belfast Labour Party and found its main bed of support amongst working class voters in Belfast. It initially declined to take a position on the "Border Question" and instead sought to offer itself as an alternative to both nationalism and unionism. It maintained relations with the British Labour Party who did not allow membership or organisation in Northern Ireland until 2004.

In the 1925 Northern Ireland General Election the party secured 3 seats in Belfast including William McMullen elected in West Belfast as well as Sam Kyle (Belfast North) and Jack Beattie(Belfast East), this was the last election for the Northern Ireland Parliament using Proportional Representation.

The party had a Westminster Member of Parliament on only one occasion, when Jack Beattie won the Belfast West by-election, 1943, retained the seat in 1945, but lost it in 1949. He regained the seat as an Irish Labour Party candidate in 1951.

In 1949, following the declaration of a Republic in the south, the Northern Ireland Labour Party's conference voted in favour of the Union with Great Britain. The result was a sharp decline in the party's already limited electoral success, as Catholic voters deserted, and the Irish Labour Party attempted to organise in Northern Ireland. An earlier refusal to adopt this policy had split the party, with leader Harry Midgley forming his own strongly Unionist Commonwealth Labour Party.

Later in the 1950s, the party began to gain ground amongst unionist voters, and after the breakup of the Irish Labour Party's new attempts to organise in Northern Ireland amongst some nationalists, it saw its greatest period of success between 1958 and 1965. Four NILP MPs were elected to Stormont in 1958 for Belfast constituencies: Tom Boyd (Cromac), Billy Boyd (Woodvale), Vivian Simpson (Oldpark), and David Bleakley (Victoria). The NILP then became the official opposition at Stormont.

Success came despite continued divisions, over such matters as Sunday Observance - two NILP Belfast councillors voted to close the city's park playgrounds on Sundays (as demanded by hard line Calvinists but opposed by Catholics) and were expelled as a result.