Michelle Gildernew
By Anthony Neeson
Northern Ireland goes to the polls Thursday to elect 18 new MPs for Westminster.
The snap general election was called by British Prime Minister Theresa May in an attempt to strengthen her hand in negotiations with the European Union over British withdrawal from the EU.
Those Brexit talks begin just 11 days after votes are cast.
The campaign in Northern Ireland has been somewhat lackluster, coming as it does just three months after the Assembly election which saw unionists lose their majority at Stormont for the first time.
Nevertheless, Sinn Féin are hoping to continue the surge that saw them come within just one seat of the DUP and 1,168 first preference votes behind the main unionist party in the aftermath of the March vote.
The DUP, for their part, are determined not to lose any of their eight seats with one of the main battlegrounds being North Belfast where the party’s leader in the House of Commons, Nigel Dodds, is fighting off the stiff challenge from Sinn Féin's John Finucane, the son of murdered Belfast human rights lawyer Pat Finucane.
Sinn Féin are hoping that the surge they experienced back in March, plus Mr. Finucane’s name, will bring them over the line in North Belfast, but with over a 5,000 vote lead in the last Westminster poll just two years ago, the DUP believe they will have enough to hold the seat.
The DUP are also under pressure in East Belfast with the Alliance Party determined to win back the seat for leader Naomi Long, who famously lost it two years ago to the DUP’s Gavin Robinson after a unionist voting pact was set up specifically to oust Long – this after her party was blamed for playing its part in having the Union flag taken down at Belfast City Hall.
In South Belfast the SDLP’s Dr. Alasdair McDonnell is hanging on by his fingertips to retain his seat after a sustained challenge over recent weeks from Sinn Féin’s Máirtin Ó Muilleoir and the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly.
The other seats to look out for are Fermanagh/South Tyrone and South Down where the bookmakers have shortened the odds on Sinn Féin taking both seats from the UUP and the SDLP respectively.
The Fermanagh/South Tyrone seat was won by the UUP’s Tom Elliott in 2015, defeating Michelle Gildernew by 530 votes. Gildernew, who is standing again, is priced as a 2/5 favorite to win back the seat for Sinn Féin with Elliott priced at 7/4.
In South Down, former Sinn Féin minister Chris Hazzard has overtaken the SDLP’s outgoing MP Margaret Ritchie as favorite to take the mainly nationalist seat.
If this happens it would be a major blow to the SDLP who have held the seat since Eddie McGrady defeated the UUP’s Enoch Powell in 1987.
Another seat to look out for is Foyle in Derry where former SDLP leader Mark Durkan is hoping to retain his seat after a stiff challenge from Sinn Féin’s former Mayor of Derry, Elisha McCallion, who garnered 9,205 first preference votes in March’s Assembly poll, helping Sinn Féin to outpoll the SDLP in the city for the first time in John Hume’s old stomping ground.
Most political commentators – and bookies – believe Durkan, however, should have enough to hang on.
Unlike the Assembly election, counting starts once voting ends at 10 p.m. on Thursday evening, with results being announced in the early hours of Friday morning.
A significant difference between the Assembly and Westminster votes is that the former uses a proportional representation system, and the latter a first past the post format.
