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Belfast West (UK Parliament constituency)

Encyclopedia : B : BE : BEL : Belfast West (UK Parliament constituency)

Belfast West
Borough constituency
Belfast West shown within Northern Ireland
Created: 1885, 1922
MP: Gerry Adams
Party: Sinn Féin
Type: House of Commons
Districts: Belfast, Lisburn
EP constituency: Northern Ireland

Belfast West is a Parliamentary Constituency in the House of Commons and also an Assembly constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Contents

Boundaries

The seat was created in 1922 when as part of the establishment of the devolved Stormont Parliament for Northern Ireland, the number of MPs in the Westminster Parliament was drastically cut. The seat is centred on the west section of Belfast, though between 1983 and 1996/7 it included the area around the Docks on the north east side of the Lagan Estuary. Belfast West also contains part of the city of Lisburn.

Proposed boundary changes

At the time of writing the Boundary Commission has proposed alterations for the boundaries of constituencies in Northern Ireland. Belfast West currently has one of the smallest electorates of any constituency in Northern Ireland and it is proposed to expand it further into Lisburn, taking in areas currently contained in Lagan Valley.

Not included in the proposals is a common suggestion to reunite the five wards centred on the Shankill Road which are currently split between Belfast West and Belfast North. At the boundary commission hearings in September 2005, the issue of transferring the Crumlin and Woodvale wards to West Belfast to unite the Greater Shankill was raised by Alliance and a private individual but was vociferously opposed by the DUP led by local MP Nigel Dodds and to a lesser extent by the Ulster Unionists. Both the SDLP and Sinn Féin had little to say on the latter issue and neither opposed nor supported it. Additionally while the Belfast DUP, represented at the enquiry by Nigel Dodds MP, supported the retention of the status quo, Jeffrey Donaldson MP for Lagan Valley as well as numerous local residents (in a petition submitted to the Commission) opposed the addition of the Dunmurry and Seymour Hill areas.

The Commission's revised recommendations, published in May 2006, add the Dunmurry ward and the Northern part of Derriaghy ward. This is the first time that a ward will be split between constituencies by a boundary commission. It is likely that these changes will be final.

History

Belfast West has historically been the most nationalist of Belfast's four constituencies, though it is only in the last few decades that the votes for unionist parties have plunged to tiny levels. The constituency is largely made of a long, slender, belt along the Falls Road and its suburban extensions, with three of the five wards from the staunchly unionist Shankill area now something of a bolt-on, with a several kilometre long Peace Line dividing them from the rest of the constituency. There is also a smaller Protestant enclave at Suffolk.

Unsurprisingly, the tenor of the constituency is largely working class and in the 1991 census it was one of only twenty constituencies where the majority of housing was still council owned. Although there are now large pockets of middle-class housing in Andersonstown and other suburban parts of the seat. Closer to the centre public-sector terraced housing, both Victorian and high quality modern housing, predominates, while in the suburbs, leafy pockets are scattered among post-War housing estates such as Lenadoon and Twinbrook.

The Westminster constituency was consistently held by the Ulster Unionist Party but always had strong Labour movement sympathies. In the UK general election, 1923, the Belfast Labour Party came within 1,000 votes of taking the seat. A by-election in 1943 was won by John Beattie, standing for the Northern Ireland Labour Party. For the next twenty-three years the seat would regularly change from unionist to nationalist/labour, with the latter represented by a variety of parties.

In the 1966 general election the seat was won by Gerry Fitt of the Republican Labour Party. Later in 1970 he left that party to become a founder and first leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. In the February 1974 general election, Belfast West was the only constituency in Northern Ireland to elect an MP supporting the Sunningdale Agreement. Fitt's majority was a narrow 2180 votes in February 1974 primarily due to the candidature of Albert Price the father of the Price sisters who were in prison in England for PIRA related offences. However the candidacy of a UVF backed candidate in October 1974 and a declining Unionist vote in 1979 led to him increasing his majorities in subsequent years. He retained the seat for the next nine years but increasingly distanced himself from nationalist groups and in late 1979 he left the SDLP altogether. He sat as an independent socialist but lost his seat in the 1983 when it was won by Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin. The Unionist vote which had still been at 30% in the 1982 Assembly elections was cut to 20% as a result of the 1983 boundary changes which, while adding the loyalist Glencairn area, removed the Donegall Road, Sandy Row and added the Nationalist Lenadoon area.

Adams' share of the vote, at 37%, was short of a majority and he achieved victory only due to Fitt and the SDLP candidate splitting the non-Sinn Féin vote. In the 1987 Adams narrowly held his seat, but lost it in the 1992 general election amidst a strong tactical voting campaign in favour of Joe Hendron of the Social Democratic and Labour Party by unionists in the Shankill Road area of the constituency. Hendron and his election agent were found guilty in an election court of having performed "corrupt and illegal practices" during the election by accepting advertising in the Irish News at less than the market rate, but the court upheld the election result.

In the mid 1990s the Boundary Commission originally suggested removing the Shankill wards from the constituency and replacing them with about half of the Belfast South constituency namely the 6 wards of the Balmoral Electoral Area and the Shaftesbury ward, effectively transforming the seat into a Belfast South West constituency. The subsequent local enquiries were bitterly contested with the SDLP favouring the commission's original proposals which would add an area where Sinn Féin had little support (and indeed had not contested in council elections), while Sinn Féin argued instead for adding the mostly republican Twinbrook and Poleglass estates (where they were outpolling the SDLP in council elections by a margin of 3 to 1.) With all parties except the SDLP supporting an option of retaining four seats in Belfast the latter option became the commissions final proposals. This coupled with the IRA ceasefire, meant that support for Sinn Féin in the constituency soared to new levels and in all elections held in the seat since 1996 they have taken over 50% of the vote. In 1997 Adams regained the Westminster seat. Few expect Sinn Féin to lose the seat again for many years.

Westminster elections

Members of Parliament

The Member of Parliament since the 1997 general election is Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin. He previously held the seat between 1983 and 1992 when he lost it to Joe Hendron of the Social Democratic and Labour Party but regained it in 1997.

Year Member Party
1885 James Horner Haslett Ulster Unionist
1886 Thomas Sexton Irish Nationalist
1892 Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Foster Liberal Unionist
1906 Joseph Devlin Irish Nationalist
Abolished 1918; revived 1922
1922 R. J. Lynn Ulster Unionist
1929 W.E.D. Allen Ulster Unionist 1929 - 1931
New Party 1931
1931 A. C. Browne Ulster Unionist
1943 Jack Beattie Northern Ireland Labour Party 1943
Independent Labour 1943 - 1945
Federation of Labour (Ireland) 1945 - 1949
Irish Labour 1949 - 1950
1950 Rev James Godfrey MacManaway Ulster Unionist
1950 Thomas Teevan Ulster Unionist
1951 Jack Beattie Irish Labour
1955 Patricia McLaughlin Ulster Unionist
1964 James Kilfedder Ulster Unionist
1966 Gerry Fitt Republican Labour 1966 - 1970
Social Democratic and Labour 1966 - 1979
Independent Socialist 1979 - 1983
1983 Gerry Adams Sinn Féin
1992 Joe Hendron Social Democratic and Labour
1997 Gerry Adams Sinn Féin

Election results

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 1980s

Following the 1979 election, Fitt became increasingly at odds with the SDLP and left it, continuing to sit as an independent socialist.

Elections in the 1970s

After the 1970 election Fitt left the Republican Labour Party to cofound the Social Democratic & Labour Party. The remains of Republican Labour had disintegrated by 1974.

Elections in the 1960s

Elections in the 1950s

Elections in the 1940s

Elections in the 1930s

Note: The sitting MP, W.E.D. Allen, had joined the New Party earlier in 1931 but did not contest the seat at the general election.

Elections in the 1920s

In the 1922 General Election, R. J. Lynn was elected unopposed.

Assemblies and Forum elections

The six MLAs for the constituency elected in the 2003 election are:

Changes In the 1998 election the six MLAs elected were:

In the 1996 election to the Northern Ireland Peace Forum, 5 Forum members were elected from North Belfast. They were as follows:

In 1982 elections were held for an Assembly for Northern Ireland to hold the Secretary of State to account, in the hope that this would be the first step towards restoring devolution. West Belfast elected 4 members as follows:

In 1975 elections were held to a Constitutional Convention which sought (unsuccessfully) to generate a consensus on the future of the province. The six members elected from West Belfast were:

In 1973 elections were held to the Assembly set up under the Sunningdale Agreement. The six members elected from West Belfast were:

Sources

See also

Constituencies in Northern Ireland
DUP Belfast East | Belfast North | East Antrim | East Londonderry | Lagan Valley | North Antrim | South Antrim | Strangford | Upper Bann
Sinn Féin Belfast West | Fermanagh and South Tyrone | Mid Ulster | Newry and Armagh | West Tyrone
SDLP Belfast South | Foyle | South Down
UUP North Down
Northern Ireland European constituency: DUP (1) | Sinn Féin (1) | UUP (1)

 

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