Some tentative prospects for Reform UK in Northern Ireland…

Eoghan Kelly is a postdoc on the University of Edinburgh’s Scottish Election Study and has lectured in Irish politics at Queen’s. Here, he uses his new election projection site to see how reform might perform on polling figures from LucidTalk..

The most recent LucidTalk poll provided a few interesting insights into NI party support. This includes a continuing slide in support for Alliance, growth for the Greens, and a slow decline for Sinn Féin, which is coupled with a small shift towards the SDLP. The poll also found the continuing emergence of three similarly sized unionist parties.

However, there may be an appetite for four

LucidTalk asked respondents if they’d be interested in voting for Reform, they were given the choice to say ‘100% Yes’, ‘Not Sure’ or ‘100% No’. As you’d expect, nationalists and others lined up behind ‘No.’

Amongst unionists, it’s more complicated. Just over a quarter of TUV voters (27%), a fifth of DUP (20%) and 14% of UUP supporters said they would definitely support Reform if they contested elections here. We modified our DevolvedElections.co.uk projection tool, which I’ve previously written about on Slugger,to put Reform’s electability to the test.

Projected vote share with Reform

For the purpose of this experiment, I’m assuming Reform turns every single one of their definite Yes’s into voters, but none of the maybes or definite Nos. In reality, both sides of that equation are unlikely, so it’s better to think of this as being closer to Reform’s floor than their ceiling.

Reform would emerge as the fourth of four unionist parties in terms of votes, but within just two percent of the UUP in second place as the field becomes very crowded. The party would be larger than PBP and the Greens combined and would be in contention to win seats. I’ve used our system to allocate Reform vote shares in accordance with these percentages across Northern Ireland to see where they’re in contention to win seats.*

Interestingly, even though Reform are taking a big chunk from the TUV, Jim Allister’s party are still up 2% compared to 2022 which will put them over the edge in places like Strangford and improve their chances elsewhere. The UUP are down by under 1% from last time, the DUP are down almost 7%.

Reform’s best opportunities for seats are, unsurprisingly, in the most heavily unionist areas but their struggles to win over UUP voters hurt them in places like South Antrim where the UUP are strong and the TUV being up makes it difficult for them to break through in places like North Antrim. Their best chances are going to be constituencies where the DUP currently have two seats.

Reform gain 6 seats under our model, Belfast East, Belfast North, Upper Bann, East Antrim, South Down and Newry & Armagh.

The first four of those are current two-seaters for the DUP and Reform gain directly from the DUP in each case. In South Down, Reform’s first preferences put them at the front of a split unionist pack with the UUP a distant fourth which meant they grabbed the sole unionist seat. It’s close and could go to either the DUP or TUV if votes fell just a percent or two differently. Newry & Armagh is the most surprising of the 6 and amounts to a unionist gain from Sinn Féin, this is the one I’d take with the biggest pinch of salt.

On these numbers, Reform would not qualify for a seat on the Executive, regardless of whether or not they would want to. There’s no hard and fast rule on how many seats you need to win to earn an executive seat but 9 or 10 usually do it. Their presence would damage any hopes of having a unionist First Minister by expanding the gap between Sinn Féin and the DUP and would reduce the number of unionist seats around the executive from 5 to 4, with Sinn Féin gaining the final executive seat which would go to the TUV on current numbers (although the TUV might not take it anyway).

Could Reform take a DUP seat in Belfast North?Overall, Reform jumping into the contest doesn’t cost unionism a single seat. They stay on 40 seats which our system was already giving unionists based on the unamended numbers from the same poll. There are a lot of close calls here, so it’s possible that Reform joining the fray could cost unionism a couple of seats or even gain them a couple. The nature of STV means that it doesn’t massively matter how split the vote is because transfers go straight to other unionists.

At Westminster, under First Past the Post, four big unionist parties competing against each other could be more damaging. Even the safest of seats would become vulnerable and targeted pacts by major parties would blow divided unionism out of the water. If everyone stood everywhere at a general election, only North Antrim would be safe for unionism because all the others would have a non-unionist within 3%, or already ahead.

*Note on methodology.

For this test I rebranded and modified ‘Other’ to take the place of Reform. I took a stab at making a transfer pattern for Reform based on where their voters are coming from which means a large number of TUV and DUP voters transfer to them, with some from the UUP. Transfers from Reform largely return from whence they came, to the TUV, DUP, and some to the UUP. Overall, Reform’s transfer pattern worked out as being broadly similar to that of the TUV.

Unfortunately, playing with this version isn’t available as I have reset ‘Other’ to its previous catchall position. But, if Reform do announce that they will stand candidates we will make a proper Reform UK entry which will be more finely honed.

It is highly unlikely that unionist leaders would allow such a divided field to occur.