Sinn Féin consolidates as Northern Ireland’s largest party

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Nationalist Sinn Féin won a “tsunami” of votes to secure a better-than-expected victory in Northern Ireland’s council elections, which were widely seen as a verdict on the region’s post-Brexit deadlock.

After the count ended early Sunday morning, Sinn Féin secured control of six of the 11 councils, solidifying its place as the largest festival in the region. He beat projections by taking 144 of 462 council seats, an increase of 39 from the last election in 2019.

The Democratic Unionist party, which had previously controlled six councils, was beaten into second place, repeating the historic reverse of last year’s election to the Stormont regional assembly.

The Alliance party, which identifies itself as neither unionist nor nationalist in the deeply divided region, secured third place with 67 councilors after what its leader Naomi Long described as a “nearly tsunami of votes” for Sinn Féin, the Irish pro-unity party.

Although some of the seats Sinn Féin won were in traditionally staunch Unionist areas where it had never won before, analysts said the result was far from a failure for the DUP.

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“This is a very good result for the DUP,” Jon Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool, told BBC Northern Ireland.

The largest pro-British group has boycotted the region’s power-sharing Stormont government and assembly for more than a year demanding more concessions regarding Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trade rules with mainland Britain and had hoped turn the council election into a proxy vote to support his campaign.

DUP supporters did not defect en masse to the harder-line Traditional Unionist Voice party which it lost support in Stormont elections last year and retained all of its 122 seats albeit without gains.

Jonathan Buckley, a DUP lawmaker, told BBC Northern Ireland it had been a “very solid election” for his party. He accused Chris Heaton-Harris, the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary of “bullying” to try to get him back to Stormont, saying other parties had “get involved”.

Analysts said the result left a way open for DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson to return his party to Stormont establishment, a move some analysts say could come after the traditional season of union marches in July.

“Self [Donaldson] return to Stormont this autumn. . . she is not going to come back with her tail between her legs because, frankly, the DUP vote has held up very, very well,” Tonge said.

DUP opposes Brexit-imposed customs border in Irish Sea and affirms revised deal, known as Windsor frameworkagreed between London and the EU earlier this year to simplify trade rules, is not enough to secure the region’s place in the UK and its home market.

He has yet to spell out what, precisely, would entice him to return to Stormont, but the UK government has promised legislation to strengthen Northern Ireland’s place within the UK and is widely expected to provide some financial incentive as well. “This has strengthened Jeffrey’s hand,” said Alex Kane, a former communications director for the smaller Ulster Unionist party.

But he warned that time was running out for the DUP to lift the boycott with a big one US investments conference to be held in Belfast in September. “If the trade unionists don’t come back [Stormont] investors don’t come.

Sinn Féin prime minister-in-waiting Michelle O’Neill called over the weekend for ministers from the UK and the Republic of Ireland to meet “as a matter of urgency” to help restore power-sharing institutions. London and Dublin have said a meeting is expected within weeks.

Despite what O’Neill called a “major” victory, his party will face a number of challenges if power-sharing is restored, keeping political commitments at a time when northern Ireland he is fighting unprecedented financial suffering.

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Officials who run Stormont in the absence of a government have warned of further cuts that could cause irreversible damage to the health service, which has the longest waiting lists in the UK, as well as other public services, such as education.

Sinn Féin’s victory over the weekend solidified its place as the largest party in the region, but local election results did not secure support for its goal of a referendum on a United Ireland within a decade.

Candidates in support of Irish reunification obtained 40.5% of the vote against 53.1% of those who wanted to remain British. However, in terms of seats, it was much closer with 186 councilors identifying themselves as returned unionists than 185 identifying themselves as nationalists, according to Professor Duncan Morrow, lecturer in politics at the University of Ulster.

“You can’t equate a vote for a Sinn Féin to a united Ireland – there has been no talk of a united Ireland in this campaign,” said Deirdre Heenan, professor of social policy at the University of Ulster.

“What these elections have really confirmed is that Northern Ireland is now a tripartite state.”