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DUP May Not Win A Belfast Seat

With a General Election taking place in the North and Britain on 12th December, campaigns across the six counties are well and truly underway. With various candidates and political parties agreeing to step aside in this First Past The Post election, it is very much turning into a Brexit based election as I have previously covered in an article prior to the election being called.

However this article covers the four MP seats in North, South, East, and West Belfast, which may not have a DUP MP after the election. Strategic moves from Sinn Féin and the SDLP in particular could see the DUP lose all 3 Belfast seats which they currently hold, one each to Sinn Féin, SDLP, and Alliance. West Belfast is a guaranteed Sinn Féin seat and little analysis is needed, the only interesting aspect is how People Before Profit will fare given their Pro-Brexit stance in this Remain Constituency. 

In South Belfast,  Sinn Féin and the Greens have stepped aside to assist the SDLP's Claire Hanna defeat the DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly. In East Belfast,  Alliance leader and MEP Naomi Long is hoping to unseat the DUP and make a swift return from Brussels, having only been elected in May and already missing a crucial vote on rescuing migrants from the Mediterranean. 

In both South and East it looks like both moderate, centrist, remain candidates are in with a chance of unseating the current DUP MPs. Their political positioning sets them up nicely to win over moderate, remain, unionists,  something which a Sinn Féin candidate may have struggled to do. The SDLP and particularly Alliance have the ability to take significant votes from the DUP in these constituencies and gain votes from the other remain parties that are standing aside.

North Belfast is the jewel in the crown for those who cover and follow elections. DUP veteran MP Nigel Dodd's seat is under threat from the Sinn Féin Mayor of Belfast John Finucane who lost out in the last Westminster election by roughly two thousand votes. However this time they are fighting this constituency virtually head to head, and it's been branded as a two horse race between the republican and the unionist. 

While the DUP MPs in South and East Belfast are relative newcomers,  losing a veteran MP who is the leader of the DUP's team of MPs would be a disaster for the party. John Finucane has a major advantage over Dodds in that Sinn Féin aren't fielding candidates in two of the city's constituencies and are guaranteed to top the poll in West Belfast, which means that Sinn Féin can focus much of their Belfast personnel and resources on getting Finucane elected.

The only certainty in Belfast is that Paul Maskey will comfortably retain his seat in the West, all of the other three are going to be very close contests. Contests which could see the DUP no longer hold an MP seat in Ireland's second city.

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