Northern Ireland’s cross-community Alliance party has won a European seat for the first time, boosting centrist politics in the region and anti-Brexit campaigners.
Naomi Long, Alliance leader, defied the odds to take the second of the region’s three seats behind Diane Dodds of the pro-Brexit Democratic Unionists. The anti-Brexit Martina Anderson of the Sinn Féin Irish republican party took the third seat, despite receiving the most first preference votes.
Ms Long came third in the initial count with 18.5 per cent of the regional vote — a huge surge since local elections only three weeks ago in which her party almost doubled its support to take 11.5 per cent of the vote.
A vocal campaigner for the UK to stay in the EU, she had cast the European poll as an opportunity to elect two Remain MEPs from Northern Ireland. The region voted to stay in the bloc by 56 per cent to 44 per cent and the European election result on Monday largely mirrored that outcome.
Greeted by cheering supporters at the count centre, Ms Long was quick to argue that her success strengthened the case for a second Brexit referendum.
“I was really clear when I went out campaigning what I want the vote to stand for and it’s a vote to remain, it’s a vote to have a ‘people’s vote’ and that’s what this vote means,” she said.
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“The people who voted for me came together from right across the community, regardless of unionism, regardless of nationalism, regardless of all those labels, they came together behind Alliance to send a message.”
Politics in the region has long been dominated by sectarian tensions between pro-UK unionists and nationalist parties like Sinn Féin that want it to join the Irish Republic.
But rising support for the centrist Alliance, which describes itself as neither unionist nor nationalist, comes amid growing frustration at a long political stand-off between the DUP and Sinn Féin, which has left Northern Ireland without a regional government since January 2017.
Ms Long’s victory breaks new ground as the region has sent two unionists and one nationalist to the European Parliament since 1979.
Arlene Foster, DUP leader, said she would have preferred to see the election of “two unionist” MEPs. “When I look at the votes, which I think is very important, I notice that unionism is still ahead by over 40,000 votes and of course I am very pleased about that.”
Ms Foster’s party has since 2017 propped up the minority UK government led by Theresa May, giving it considerable influence over the Brexit policy of the outgoing British premier amid tension over the future of the border with the Irish Republic.
The DUP has repeatedly rejected Mrs May’s Brexit treaty, saying that the “backstop” to avert a hard border was unacceptable as it would keep the region under EU trading rules while the rest of the UK leaves. Both Alliance and Sinn Féin supported the backstop, as has business in the region and many of its farmers.
Ms Long’s tally of almost 106,000 first preference votes was more than 61,000 greater than her party’s vote in the previous European election five years ago. After the initial count, she had been forecast to take the third seat.
But she eclipsed Ms Anderson after receiving vote transfers from the SDLP Irish nationalist party under a system in which voters’ preferences are carried on from unsuccessful candidates as they are eliminated from the count.
