A continuation of the Northern Irish Parliament

[East Anglian Lefty]

As discussed on the 'If the North went South' thread, I've recently worked up a plan for a 52-seat Stormont assembly elected by FPTP. This is based upon the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Initially it returned 48 members from 9 territorial constituencies, elected by STV, plus 4 members elected by graduates of QUB, also elected by STV. From 1929 the 9 constituencies were replaced by 48 FPTP seats and from 1968 the university constituency was replaced by 4 new FPTP seats covering suburban areas around Belfast. The boundaries were not overly gerrymandered, but demographics and the tendency of Northern Irish Labour to violently disintegrate every decade or so meant that the Unionists never came remotely close to having its majority threatened. Their worst result was 1945, when they had 33 seats and could also have counted on the support of three Independent unionists and probably the three independents as well.

Obviously there's no real chance of FPTP coming back for Stormont nor the assembly being cut to 52 seats, but it'd still be interesting to see how it'd look now.

I started with a few basic assumptions:

1. Use electoral wards as building blocks, because anything else would be unnecessarily complex;
2. Given the size of the wards, a 5% deviation is far too tight, so I extended it out to 10%. This means that seats could range in size from 21,520 electors to 26,302;
3. Assign seats to local authorities, or where that won't work to combinations of local authorities. However, for groupings of local authorities I used a 5% rule, to try to minimise systemic over- or under-representation;
4. As much as possible, keep towns together. This is tricky, as a lot of Northern Irish towns have two or three streets stuck in an otherwise entirely rural ward, so if you think a seat looks odd this is probably why.

I aimed to draw the map in a fairly neutral way. I'm happy for this to be questioned and obviously the only way to be completely unbiased in Northern Ireland is to be so ignorant you don't realise when you're putting your thumb on the scale, but I didn't set out with any particular partisan attempt.

So, let's start off with the entitlement to seats of each local authority area:

Authority	Electorate	Entitlement
Antrim & Newtownabbey	94643	3.96
Armagh, Banbridge & Craigavon	137839	5.76
Belfast	212482	8.89
Causeway Coast & Glens	96228	4.02
Derry & Strabane	103942	4.35
Fermanagh & Omagh	80554	3.37
Lisburn & Castlereagh	96392	4.03
Mid & East Antrim	96306	4.03
Mid Ulster	92830	3.88
Newry, Mourne & Down	118777	4.97
North Down & Ards	113376	4.74

Most of those work extremely nicely (there was a reason I went for 52 rather than 48 seats), so it's quicker to talk about the problems:

• Derry & Strabane would just about work with a 10% limit, but even then it'd be extremely tight.
• Even with 10%, Fermangh & Omagh can't stand alone. So the simplest solution is to pair it with Derry & Strabane, for eight seats.
• North Down & Ards is slightly too small to have five seats to itself. I considered relaxing the rule, but then I found that there's no solution to that which doesn't look terrible.
• Newry, Mourne & Down is about the right size for 5 seats, but if you're letting Lisburn & Castlereagh have 4 then it has to be paired with North Down & Ards.
• Armagh, Banbridge & Craigavon is a little small for 6 seats, but it's within 5% and I found a non-horrific solution. But if you do that then you end up with 53 seats, so you have to combine it with NDA and NMD for 15 seats.

You could argue that the net impact of that is to shift half a seat from unionists to nationalists (as the Tyrone seats are undersized and the Down and Armagh ones are oversized.) There's some merit in that charge, but if you want to do it the other way then you have to combine D&S, F&O, Mid Ulster and ABC, which is even uglier, so I'm reasonably happy with the groupings I've picked.

So, having set that out, lets move on to the groupings:

West

Eight seats for Derry & Strabane and Fermanagh & Omagh (with two entirely contained within Fermanagh) and four for Mid-Ulster.





Derry City (25,584) - a quick word on names is probably needed here. Yes, there'd be an almighty bunfight over this, there's a decent chance the Boundary Commission would try to call the three seats covering the city Foyle North, East and West and at least two parties in any given election would refuse to refer to the seat by its actual name, but at the end of the day a majority of electors in this seat think they live in Derry.

Entirely covered by the Foyleside and The Moor DEAs. Pretty safe SF, it's doubtful any unionist party would save its deposit.

Derry Shantallow (21,857) - possibly an even more controversial name, but again this is clearly majority nationalist. There's not enough population west of the Foyle for two seats and it's less disruptive to cross over the Foyle Bridge than in the centre.

Would have favoured the SDLP historically and probably still does, though that depends how the dust has settled from last year.

Londonderry Waterside (23,917) - majority unionist, so it gets the longer form of the city's name. Safe DUP.

Strabane (22,744) - also stretches over a decent swathe of the Sperrins. Safe SF.

Omagh (23,820) - Co-extensive with the Omagh and Mid Tyrone DEAs. Rock-solid SF.

West Tyrone (21,642) - covering the West Tyrone DEA and most of the Derg DEA, this just scrapes over the minimum electorate and is another safe SF seat.

Enniskillen (22,880) - covers the Enniskillen and Erne North DEAs, which are the two strongest DEAs for unionists in Fermanagh. I suspect it'd still be close enough that there'd be a single unionist candidate (Arlene Foster, presumably), but they'd win easily.

Lisnaskea (22,012) - the flip side of the equation is that SF would walk it in the other Fermanagh seat, covering the Erne East and Erne West DEAs.

Clogher Valley (23,451) - it's easy to give Mid Ulster 4 seats. It's harder to give it 4 seats that don't split any towns. I think my solution is reasonable, but this is definitely the leftovers seat. The entire Clogher Valley DEA plus one ward from Dungannon DEA, one ward from Torrent DEA and two wards from Cookstown DEA. This would be competitive, but again I would assume that a unionist unity candidate could hold it.

Dungannon & Coalisland (22,187) - Dungannon town is fairly marginal. Coalisland isn't. Safe SF.

Cookstown & Magherafelt (23,190) - if you're wondering why I included the leg to the south of Cookstown, it's because the Cookstown South ward doesn't actually include the south of Cookstown. Possibly marginal versus a single unionist candidate, but under normal circumstances this would go SF.

Maghera (24,002) - the Moyola and Carntogher DEAs. SF got over 50% of the vote in both of these DEAs at the last local elections, so this one wouldn't be competitive.

I'll move on to Antrim tomorrow and try to get the rest of it done over the course of the week.

[Pete Whitehead]

Did you try and work out an entitlement by county and whether that is possible? It looks like it might have been difficult with a 10% limit though Fermanagah clearly looks fine. The Cookstown/Magherafelt seat is a bit sub-optimal but I'm guessing Tyrone isn't good for either 5 or 6 whole seats so there needs to be a cross county seat with Londonderry somewhere

Edit: looking at the figures it appears Tyrone is about spot on for 5 seats and Londonderry for 7 so I would probably pursue that approach but I'll shut up for now

[therealriga]

Mostly agree, but I'd make a few tweaks....

Rename Lisnaskea as South Fermanagh. (Obviously, there was a Lisnaskea constituency pre-1973, but that always seemed an odd choice rather than East Fermanagh.)

Your Clogher Valley sprawling up to the west of Cookstown doesn't work for me. I'd add the 4 Dungannon wards to that and omit the 3 northernmost wards. Rename it to either Dungannon or South Tyrone.

You then have a compact seat around Coalisland which includes Donaghmore, Pomeroy and Coagh, but omits Oaklands. Call that one East Tyrone. (Coalisland or Torrent are alternative names.)

Rename Maghera as Sperrin.

Your Derry seats don't work for me. The northern one especially. There's only one bridge on its southern border linking the two parts. It's awkward because the west bank is short of two seats. I'd put Victoria and Ebrington into a seat with the southern west bank with Northland, Foyle Springs and Sheriff's Mountain being the northernmost wards. Call that one Foyleside or Foyle Bridge. For the one covering the rest of the west bank, Shantallow works fine. For the east bank one, Altnagelvin.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Jun 4, 2018 16:40:30 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Did you try and work out an entitlement by county and whether that is possible? It looks like it might have been difficult with a 10% limit though Fermanagah clearly looks fine. The Cookstown/Magherafelt seat is a bit sub-optimal but I'm guessing Tyrone isn't good for either 5 or 6 whole seats so there needs to be a cross county seat with Londonderry somewhere

Edit: looking at the figures it appears Tyrone is about spot on for 5 seats and Londonderry for 7 so I would probably pursue that approach but I'll shut up for now

I didn't bother with trying to figure out counties, because the wards don't respect the boundary. In particular, there's a ward covering parts of both Portrush and Portstewart. If it can't be done cleanly, I'm not sure I see the point.

Jun 4, 2018 17:40:43 GMT therealriga said:

Mostly agree, but I'd make a few tweaks....

Rename Lisnaskea as South Fermanagh. (Obviously, there was a Lisnaskea constituency pre-1973, but that always seemed an odd choice rather than East Fermanagh.)

Your Clogher Valley sprawling up to the west of Cookstown doesn't work for me. I'd add the 4 Dungannon wards to that and omit the 3 northernmost wards. Rename it to either Dungannon or South Tyrone.

You then have a compact seat around Coalisland which includes Donaghmore, Pomeroy and Coagh, but omits Oaklands. Call that one East Tyrone. (Coalisland or Torrent are alternative names.)

Rename Maghera as Sperrin.

Your Derry seats don't work for me. The northern one especially. There's only one bridge on its southern border linking the two parts. It's awkward because the west bank is short of two seats. I'd put Victoria and Ebrington into a seat with the southern west bank with Northland, Foyle Springs and Sheriff's Mountain being the northernmost wards. Call that one Foyleside or Foyle Bridge. For the one covering the rest of the west bank, Shantallow works fine. For the east bank one, Altnagelvin.

I could go for the changes to Mid Ulster, but I don't think that works for Derry. Waterside (plus New Buildings) is exactly the right size for a seat and forms a coherent whole, whereas the villages up near the airport are commuter villages and could go anywhere. And it's not like the Foyle Bridge is a minor road. If it's the narrowness of the boundary that's an issue, you could move Madam's Bank ward without harming the numbers.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Moving on to Antrim plus East Londonderry. All three local authorities are entitled to 4 seats each and most of them draw themselves.





Limavady (25,451) - the Limavady and Benbradagh DEAs, plus one ward from Bann to let the Coleraine seat have a neater border. Benbradagh is slightly more nationalist than Limavady is unionist, but the one ward from Bann is enough to make it properly marginal. There'd be a lot of pressure for a unionist pact here, especially if it was felt control of Stormont was under threat.

Coleraine (25,140) - Coleraine plus the rest of Bann DEA. As mentioned above, the wards don't really let you respect the Londonderry-Antrim border, but at least by making these two seats slightly oversized you don't have to cross the Bann south of Coleraine.

Giant's Causeway (23,834) - the Glens of Antrim are split between two local authorities, but even if they weren't they wouldn't be able to outvote the heavily unionist west of the seat. Safe DUP.

Ballymoney (21,803) - if there was any challenge to the DUP here, I expect it'd be from the TUV.

Ballymena (21,813) - another case of ward boundaries not quite keeping up with edge-of-town developments, this would no doubt return one scion of the Paisley clan or another until approximately the time the sun engulfs the earth.

Mid Antrim (23,918) - so called because there's just no town you can reasonably name it after. Rock-solid DUP under any circumstances whatsoever.

Larne (25,365) - Coast Road and Larne Lough DEAs and essentially the old Larne Borough. Works very nicely indeed. Safe unionist, though probably as likely to go UUP as DUP.

Carrickfergus (25,210) - Knockagh and Carrick Castle DEAs and in almost all respects co-extensive with the old Carrickfergus Borough. Safe unionist and safe DUP unless the UUP could put a massive squeeze on the Alliance and nationalist votes.

Newtownabbey East (22,648) - you can get two seats covering Newtownabbey, but you can't get a neat internal boundary, and it gets worse the closer you zoom in. In particular, the boundaries of the Carnmoney Hill ward are just absurd, because it's literally made up of random streets surrounding the eponymous hill. Still, this is as nice as I could get it to look. Very safely DUP, with the UUP a distant second and with SF struggling to beat the TUV.

Newtownabbey West (23,440) - this is somewhat more diverse than East, but still a very unionist seat. DUP on the evidence of the last local elections, but I wouldn't count the UUP out.

Ballyclare (24,859) - you could replace the four southern wards here with the Randalstown area, but this keeps all the outlying bits of Antrim Town in a single seat. This arrangement favours the UUP, whereas Randalstown would be better for the DUP.

Antrim Town (23,696) - the Antrim DEA and all but one ward from Dunsilly DEA. Ought to favour the DUP, though if you swapped Dunsilly for Airport then the UUP would probably be favoured.

In an even year, that probably equates to 11 seats for some variety of unionism and one for nationalists, though 12-0 is considerably more likely than 10-2.

[Pete Whitehead]

Can we see the Newtownabbey seats?

[East Anglian Lefty]

Oops. Fixed now.

[therealriga]

Jun 5, 2018 16:36:12 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Moving on to Antrim plus East Londonderry. All three local authorities are entitled to 4 seats each and most of them draw themselves.

Limavady (25,451) - the Limavady and Benbradagh DEAs, plus one ward from Bann to let the Coleraine seat have a neater border. Benbradagh is slightly more nationalist than Limavady is unionist, but the one ward from Bann is enough to make it properly marginal. There'd be a lot of pressure for a unionist pact here, especially if it was felt control of Stormont was under threat.

Coleraine (25,140) - Coleraine plus the rest of Bann DEA. As mentioned above, the wards don't really let you respect the Londonderry-Antrim border, but at least by making these two seats slightly oversized you don't have to cross the Bann south of Coleraine.

Giant's Causeway (23,834) - the Glens of Antrim are split between two local authorities, but even if they weren't they wouldn't be able to outvote the heavily unionist west of the seat. Safe DUP.

Ballymoney (21,803) - if there was any challenge to the DUP here, I expect it'd be from the TUV.

Ballymena (21,813) - another case of ward boundaries not quite keeping up with edge-of-town developments, this would no doubt return one scion of the Paisley clan or another until approximately the time the sun engulfs the earth.

Mid Antrim (23,918) - so called because there's just no town you can reasonably name it after. Rock-solid DUP under any circumstances whatsoever.

Larne (25,365) - Coast Road and Larne Lough DEAs and essentially the old Larne Borough. Works very nicely indeed. Safe unionist, though probably as likely to go UUP as DUP.

Carrickfergus (25,210) - Knockagh and Carrick Castle DEAs and in almost all respects co-extensive with the old Carrickfergus Borough. Safe unionist and safe DUP unless the UUP could put a massive squeeze on the Alliance and nationalist votes.

Newtownabbey East (22,648) - you can get two seats covering Newtownabbey, but you can't get a neat internal boundary, and it gets worse the closer you zoom in. In particular, the boundaries of the Carnmoney Hill ward are just absurd, because it's literally made up of random streets surrounding the eponymous hill. Still, this is as nice as I could get it to look. Very safely DUP, with the UUP a distant second and with SF struggling to beat the TUV.

Newtownabbey West (23,440) - this is somewhat more diverse than East, but still a very unionist seat. DUP on the evidence of the last local elections, but I wouldn't count the UUP out.

Ballyclare (24,859) - you could replace the four southern wards here with the Randalstown area, but this keeps all the outlying bits of Antrim Town in a single seat. This arrangement favours the UUP, whereas Randalstown would be better for the DUP.

Antrim Town (23,696) - the Antrim DEA and all but one ward from Dunsilly DEA. Ought to favour the DUP, though if you swapped Dunsilly for Airport then the UUP would probably be favoured.

In an even year, that probably equates to 11 seats for some variety of unionism and one for nationalists, though 12-0 is considerably more likely than 10-2.

I'd probably go for a doughnut instead of horseshoe shape for the Mid Antrim one by having Cullybackey or Ahoghill with Ballymena instead and rename Newtownabbey west as Glengormley and Newtownabbey east as Rathcoole, but mostly it's down to personal preference.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Next up we've got Belfast. I threw in Lisburn too because it makes the maps easier, but honestly there's not too much of interest there.

Belfast has 10 DEAs but is only entitled to 9 seats. A lot of the larger ones still work, so most of the seats are based on them, but I had to shuffle some wards around and throw some together to make it work. Mostly I think I might have got away with it, but there's one glaring exception which I'm sure you'll all notice.



Belfast Collin (22,396) - identical boundaries to the DEA. The name is a bit of a placeholder and I guess a couple of alternatives might be Twinbrook or Poleglass. Not quite the safest SF seat on the map, but very close indeed.

Belfast Black Mountain (25,337) - again, identical to the DEA and again the name is a placeholder. Possibly Andersonstown would be a suitable alternative? Very slightly safer for SF than Collin.

Belfast Oldpark (24,995) - not the worst bit of bonfire-bait here, but still likely to ruffle some feathers. Compared to the eponymous DEA, it loses New Lodge and gains the two western wards of Court, hence swapping one strongly nationalist area for two strongly unionist ones. I don't think that is enough to override the nationalist advantage in the rest of the seat, but it's possible I'm wrong and it certainly wouldn't be a quiet campaign.

Belfast Castle (24,400) - based upon the eponymous DEA, but the addition of New Lodge ought to put SF in the driving seat here.

Belfast Central (22,010) - two wards from the Falls, two wards from the Shankill and two wards from the city centre. Doesn't that sound nice? I picked the name because any other choice would frankly be inflammatory. Knife-edge marginal. Hopefully not literally.

Belfast Malone (24,805) - it's a little surprising how little of the population of Belfast South is made up of what I would naturally think of as the south of Belfast. This is the Balmoral DEA and two wards from Botanic. With at least six parties likely to run active campaigns here, I'm not even sure it's worth trying to predict the outcome. Any incumbent hoping to get re-elected would probably need to rely on something more than a communal bloc vote though.

Belfast Ormeau (23,002) - I based this off the Lisnaharragh DEA, but the boundaries aren't identical and Ormeau is just a much more evocative name than Lisnaharragh. I suspect this would resolve itself into a DUP-Alliance marginal in pretty short order, with the former presumably favoured.

Belfast Pottinger (23,922) - I don't think it looks an awful lot like the original seat of that name, but I wanted to reuse the name and this is the best candidate. Essentially it's the Titanic DEA, but without Woodstock and with Orangefield and Sandown added to create a more natural southern boundary. A stronghold for working-class unionism, so it ought to go DUP.

Belfast Victoria (21,655) - this is just the Ormiston DEA minus Sandown, but I wanted to reuse another historic name. Admittedly Victoria Park isn't actually in the seat, but if you can't get away with naming things after the royal family here, where can you? Another DUP-Alliance contest and possibly more likely to be a fair fight.

I'm not going to bother totalling the seats here, because I don't have the fine-grained knowledge of exactly how each ward votes, but there are six seats a nationalist candidate could theoretically win and only two where unionists could never get close (though they'd need some pretty lucky vote-splits to get all seven at once).

Lisburn and Castlereagh is rather less interesting, because it's much less close.

Castlereagh (25,565) - the two Castlereagh DEAs minus Carryduff. Safe for the DUP, because they get a big margin out of Dundonald and Newtownbreda is a three way fight between them, the SDLP and the Alliance.

Lagan Valley (23,644) - or Downshire, if you prefer. A sweeping rural seat where the only challenge to the DUP would come from business-friendly unionism - NI21 polled fairly well here in the local elections.

Lisburn South East (23,525) - you can quibble with the compass points if you like, given that most of this is Lisburn North DEA (but it goes south of the Lagan, so I think the name is still defensible). But I think we can all agree it's going DUP.

Lisburn North West (23,658) - also includes a swathe of villages up towards Lough Neagh, which might help nationalist parties save their deposit. That's the limit though.

This one is a fairly incontestable 4-0 advantage for unionism.

[therealriga]

I tried Belfast yesterday and got exactly the same boundaries as you. The only alternative is shuffling a few wards around to keep the Greater Shankill together. If you go down that route, Duncairn and New Lodge go to Belfast Central. Waterworks and Cliftonville go to the northernmost seat and Shankill and Woodvale replace them. That would tilt central to the Sinn Fein column and the north west seat (Belfast Wolfhill?) to the DUP. I prefer your option but the two biggest parties may prefer the latter option as it would give them a safeish seat each.

On names, I'd rename Castle to Cavehill, as that's the main geographic feature. Collin is fine. Black Mountain is fine, but if renaming it, Andersonstown wouldn't be the best, whereas Belfast Upper Falls would cover it.

Malone could be Balmoral or Botanic. Pottinger could be Connswater. But both your names are fine.

Victoria doesn't work for the last one. Belfast Stormont, as the Stormont estate is the main geographic feature.

[East Anglian Lefty]

As far as alternatives in Belfast go, the SF counterproposal is fairly simple: just move Beechmount into Belfast Central. Three wards on the Falls Road will outvote two on the Shankill by enough to make it impossible for the DUP to claw it back in the city centre. This is also relatively easy to justify on community of interest grounds, as Beechmount is separated from the rest of Black Mountain DEA by the Milltown Cemetery and Falls Park.

The best DUP counterproposal I can come up with is to throw the Shankill under the bus by making a seat out of the following wards: Clonard; Falls; Shankill; Woodvale; Waterworks; Ardoyne; and Cliftonville. You can then create a fairly reliably unionist seat to the west of that and one that's at worst marginal to the east. You could strengthen it even more by swapping Woodvale for New Lodge, but honestly I don't think there's boundary commissioner in the world stupid enough to fall for that one.

[East Anglian Lefty]

The three authorities of North Down & Ards; Newry, Mourne & Down and Armagh, Banbridge & Craigavon (henceforth NDA, NMD and ABC) have an entitlement to 15.47 seats, so this is quite tight in places - I couldn't get is posted Thursday lunchtime because I noticed one seat was slightly over and it took me the best part of half an hour to fix satisfactorily. There are also some awkward boundaries, particularly in NDA, where outlying areas of towns are combined with totally separate villages and the north of NMD, where some tiny little villages are divided between three wards for no apparent reason. So I'm more than happy to see some counter-proposals here, but this is the best I've got:





Bangor West (24,745) - Bangor (and surrounding villages in Bangor wards) has an entitlement to two seats and if you don't do that it's likely to get split 4 ways, so I've taken the simple option here. The Bangor West DEA plus one from Holywood and Clandeboye DEA and two from Bangor Central DEA. Covers the town centre. Decent Alliance potential, but Central is strong enough for the DUP that I think they'd hold on. Though it's North Down, so who knows?

Bangor East (22,986) - more suburban and a bit safer for the DUP.

Ards Peninsula (25,996) - includes a ward and a half of Newtownards, but that's inevitable unless you're willing to jump Strangford Lough. Safe DUP, but with the least derisory nationalist vote in NDA.

Newtownards & Holywood (25,827) - Newtownards is about the right size for a seat, but you can't keep in whole without Ards jumping Strangford Lough, Bangor getting sliced and diced and Holywood having to go with Castlereagh. It's really not worth the disruption, so I've settled for this less than excellent seat instead. That wouldn't please the Alliance, who would do well in a seat combining Holywood and the west of Bangor, but would get swamped by the DUP here.

Comber (25,449) - the eponymous DEA from NDA, plus all of the Rowallane DEA from NMD bar Ballynahinch. Safe DUP.

Downpatrick (25,338) - the eponymous DEA, most of Slieve Croob and Ballynahinch, which is a bit of an outlier. If the SDLP can't win here, they're not likely to win anywhere else.

Mourne (25,726) - again, named after the DEA, but it also takes in the southern part of Slieve Croob. The nationalist advantage is just about large enough for this to be safe.

Warrenpoint (24,105) - this is a bit of an awkward seat, as is the following. Arguably it makes more sense to split Newry in two along the river, but unfortunately Damolly ward contains areas from both sides (but no bridge). It wouldn't have much of a partisan impact, though possibly splitting Newry helps the SDLP somewhat?

Newry (23,503) - see above.

South Armagh (25,922) - not the best place to cross the local authority boundary, but not terrible either. There's some unionist strength in the north-east of the seat, but the south of it votes like West Belfast so this is definitely safe SF.

Banbridge (23,681) - Tandragee is a little isolated here, but otherwise this is a nice compact seat centred on the eponymous town. And it's probably the one seat the UUP can rely on in this map.

Dromore (23,133) - this is a bit of a sprawling seat, and it might be better to swap the southern end for Gilford and Tandragee. Would probably go DUP, but the UUP aren't out of it by any means.

Lurgan (23,485) - ideally I'd like to swap Derrytrasna for Magheralin, but ultimately that doesn't make much difference. Another fairly compact seat and very likely to go SF.

Portadown (25,491) - combines Craigavon with all of Portadown bar a few streets on the north end. Probably the seat about which most guff about trends would be talked, but ultimately it'd vote for a unionist under any circumstances except the flukiest vote split, and probably even then.

Armagh City (24,405) - quite a lot of the electorate outside the city is unionist, but my instinct it that that wouldn't be enough to cancel out the SF advantage in Armagh itself.

So I'd make that 8-7 to unionists, though I'm more than happy to be corrected by people with better knowledge of voting patterns than I possess.

In an even year, I think the overall result would be something alone the lines of 22 nationalists to 30 unionists, with any seats for parties outside that paradigm much more likely to come from the unionist than the nationalist pile. But ultimately, under this arrangement I think we would still be looking at a baked-in unionist majority.

[East Anglian Lefty]

On the basis that I'm that bored today, I took another crack at grouping NDA and NDM for 10 seats and Armagh and the three western LAs for 17 seats. Whenever I've attempted this previously it's been pretty horrible, but this time it worked out really rather well and I think I actually prefer it to my original solution. So here it is:

Down & South Armagh

NDA and NDM have 9.71 quotas between them, so you can give them 10 seats. The smaller average seat size really helps here, particularly round Newry. Here's what I got:





Bangor West (24,745) - as in previous map.

Bangor East (22,986) - as in previous map.

Ards Peninsula (22,798) - only has about half of ward of Newtownards. If you split Loughries, you might just be able to remove that, though it'd be tight.

Newtownards & Holywood (23,296) - unfortunately, the centre of Newtownards gets carved out. With different ward boundaries, you could probably get a much more logical split, broadly along the line of Kempe Stones Rd-High St-Bowtown Rd.

Comber (22,557) - probably safest to keep a short name and not draw attention to the obvious abomination, isn't it?

Downpatrick (22,849) - the Downpatrick DEA and the rural bits of Rowallane DEA.

Newcastle (22,655) - the town is admittedly right on the edge of the seat, but I can't think of any alternative names.

Mourne (23,295) - compared to my previous attempt, this swaps Newcastle for Warrenpoint. Probably a bit more cohesive, though Tollymore ward sticks out a little.

Newry (24,535) - the town and 3 wards of Crotlieve. Nice and neat.

South Armagh (22,437) - I think we can all agree this is a vast improvement upon my previous attempt.

That would split 5-5, so no headline partisan impact compared to what I did last time, but I think SF would be bolstered in a few seats versus the SDLP.

ABC and the West

17.36 quotas here, so it's less of a squeeze than putting ABC in with NDA and NMD. On the downside, Fermanagh gets split three ways. That can possibly be avoided, but it'd be awkward.



Derry City (23,172)

Derry Shantallow (24,309)

Londonderry Waterside (23,917) - all three seats as before, except that I moved Madam's Bank ward from City to Shantallow to improve electoral equality.

Strabane (25,354) - the higher average seat size means I can include both Finn and Sion Mills, creating a nicer boundary.

West Tyrone & Irvinestown (25,465) - obviously not everybody would be happy about the cross-county boundary, but I think unionists might be particularly keen to kick up a stink, because the margins they'd get out of Fermanagh would not come close to making up for the deficit they'd record in Tyrone.

Enniskillen (24,802) - I don't think this would be popular amongst unionists, either. SF topped the polls here in the local elections, and that was with an ex-SF indie taking 1200 votes in Erne West. I don't think a unity candidate could win here.

Lisnaskea & South Tyrone (25,084) - this is a rubbish name. Happy to hear suggestions for a better and shorter one. Safe SF.

Omagh (23,820) - as I did in the other map.

Maghera (24,002) - I still prefer this name to Sperrin, which to me implies a much wider area. Glenshane might work though.

Cookstown & Magherafelt (25,781) - the higher average seat size means I can include the wards to the west of Cookstown.

Dungannon & Coalisland (24,872) - maybe just call this Torrent?

Blackwater (24,801) - I've just noticed that on the map this is too small by about 85 electors, so I've shifted Derrytrasna ward in. This doesn't match up too well to DEA boundaries, but I was going to say I thought this would go unionist. I think it probably still just about would, but Derrytrasna certainly changes that calculus a bit.

Armagh (23,846) - the city and 4 wards to the south of it. Quite neat.

Portadown & Craigavon (25,491) - as in my previous map.

Lurgan (23,490) - takes Magheralin instead of Derrytrasna. There's enough of a nationalist vote in Lurgan itself that I don't think that matters too much.

Dromore (23,011) - takes Gilford instead of Magheralin and looks a little better for it.

Banbridge (23,948) - takes Markethill instead of Gilford.

Assuming I haven't just flipped Blackwater, that'd like go 12-5 in favour of nationalists. Which would produce an overall result of 29-23 in favour of unionism. If I have flipped Blackwater, it'd be 28-24 and it'd only take a couple of Alliance victories for the majority to be lost.

[Pete Whitehead]

Another option here of course is to consider the current 90 seat Assembly elected by FPTP. I have done something similar I think when there were 108 seats.
There are two ways to do this. One is to divide each of the existing five-member constituencies into 5 single member seats. I don't see any particularly good reason to do this as it leads to unequal electorates, there is nothing inherently sound about the existing constituency boundaries and indeed as there have been ward boundary changes since the last parliementary review, the wards do not even align. So I go for the second option which is to divide the whole by 90.
This gives an average electorate of 13,815 which if you apply a 10% threshold gives a maximum of 15,197 and a minimum of 12,434. I have used these figures as a guideline rather than a rule but have only a handful of seats here which are outside those limits.

I have also given some loose regard to county boundaries (but it is loose indeed) and also to those of the previous districts but in general I have not been constrained by them. Because of the size of the seats involved, it is often the case (outside of Belfast anyway) that these seats correspond roughly or exactly to current or former DEAs. This has not been deliberate but I haven't gone out of my way to avoid it either, especially as it can be useful for gauging the electoral landscape.

So firstly, Fermanagh and Tyrone

Fermanagh is good for three seats here and Tyrone for nine



In Fermanagh, Enniskillen has a fairly even balance between Unionist and Nationalist and would depend how those votes divide, or if there is a united Unionist candidate.  I suspect it would have been very close between DUP and SF in 2017 (assembly) but I'll call it DUP if only because it's the only seat in this group they're likely to have won then.
The other two Fermanagh seats should be reliable for SInn Fein, especially Lisnaskea.

Moving into Tyrone, the two 'South Tyrone' seats of Dungannon and Clogher Valley are similar to Enniskillen with probably a slight nationalist advantage but which would easily be capable of giving a plurality to a united Unionist candidate (as they would no doubt have done in recent general elections).  In the 2017 assembly elections when there was not one then I presume SF would have been ahead in both.  The only other seat here which could be competitive here I think would be Cookstown (which is more favourably drawn for the Unionists here than the DEA of the same name) but again would probably require a unity candidate. The others range from the merely safe Sinn Fein like Omagh and Strabane to the ultra safe Coalisland and Pomeroy (not entirely convinced by some of my own names here if I'm honest, but there are too many seats to have 'Mid Tyrones' and the like and some of the collections of random rural wards lack any obvious centre). 

A few of the seats fall outside my electorate guidlines here which I justify on community grounds.  Omagh is well under quota but maintains a compact urban seat while the overall electorate of Fermanagh makes it nigh impossible to draw three seats without one of them being over quota and I see that as preferable to crossing the county boundary here.


So of the 12 seats here I think the 2017 numbers produce only 1 or 2 DUP seats with the remainder (10 or 11) for Sinn Fein, but there is a little bit more potential for Unionists if their vote was united (up to 4 seats)

[Pete Whitehead]

Next Londonderry or 'Londonderry' - while I've more or less restored the boundary between Londonderry and Tyrone, it isn't really possible to sort the boundary with Antrim and so the most sensible approach seemed to be to include the whole of the former Coleraine district here (also if you took out Portrush the entitlement is to about 12.5 seats so this helps bring it up to a full 13)



Starting in the city, the four mainly urban seats are largely based on the former DEAs, borrowing the names from those. The political situation was long that Cityside is safe for Sinn Fein, Waterside safe for the DUP and the other two safe for the SDLP. On more recent form and on the 2017 numbers Northlands and Shantallow would both have been close between SF and SDLP but the latter would surely have been ahead in at least one of them.
The seat I have called Altnagelvin which includes some of the built up area with a few rural wards would also be close and includes a large enough Unionist minority that an even split between the two Nationalist parties could allow a united Unionist to win.  Of course in 2017 there was no united Unionist so another one that is probably too close to call but where if forced to guess I'd go for the SDLP.
Moving East from the city, Claudy (another slightly crap name) includes the parts of the former Derry district which are in East Londonderry together with a couple of wards formerly in Limavady.  There is a clear nationalist majority here and it would break far more clearly for Sinn fein than those seats further West.
The seat including and named for the town of Limavady itself maintains a precarious Unionist majority and I think would have been won by the DUP in 2017 even in spite of the fragmentation of the Unionist vote in East Londonderry.  
Glenshane which covers the South of former Limavady and the West fo former Magherafelt is rock solid Sinn Fein - perhaps their safest seat outside of West Belfast.  Moyola and Magherafelt are somewhat less solid but still safe enough for Sinn Fein in all normal circumstances.
The three remaining seats, all contained within the former Coleraine district would all have comfortably voted DUP in 2017 though there is a sizeable Nationalist minority in Garvagh.

So there's clearly 5 DUP seats and at least 5 for Sinn Fein with another three that would be SF/SDLP marginals.  It seems probable that the SDLP would have won at least one of these in 2017 and probably two which would give -  6 SF 5 DUP 2 SDLP

[Pete Whitehead]

Armagh gets 9 seats, Down gets 22. Caveats here again on the county boundaries - I've included (most of) those parts of the old Craigavon district which were in County Down within Armagh with all of Newry in Down.



I don't think there are any marginal seats amongst my nine in County Armagh.  The only possible one would be Lurgan South which could potentially be a DUP/UUP marginal.  Otherwise it looks straightforward to me that 5 seats are safe for Sinn Fein - Lurgan North, Craigavon, Armagh, Newtownhamilton and Camlough with Lurgan South, Portadown, Loughgall and Markethill safe for the DUP. Certainlky in 2017 they would have broken 5 SF 4 DUP

The parts of Down included on the map are a bit more unpredictable.  Dromore is another possible intra-Unionist marginal but I'd say clearly DUP leaning while Banbridge may be the most reliable UUP seat in the province (but even that may have been close).
Rathfriland which is a real 'bits left over' seat between Banbridge and Newry looks very balanced in community terms and may have gone DUP in 2017 only because they dominated the Unionist vote slightly more than Sinn fein dominated the nationalist vote.
Heading South, Newry and Warren Point are of course safe for Sinn Fein while Kilkeel is another possible four-way bunfight with the DUP likely to be on top in 2017.  Newcastle is a Sinn Fein/SDLP marginal where SF would have been clearly ahead in 2017 while Ballynahinch is yet another seat where a substantial Unionist minority could win through against an evenly divided Nationalist vote but where I'd think Sinn Fein were ahead in 2017...

[Pete Whitehead]

In the remainder of Down the only clearly Nationalist seat we have here is Downpatrick. This must be considered the major SDLP stronghold in Northern Ireland but given how easily Sinn Fein carried South Down in 2017 I'm struggling to believe it wouldn't at least have been close then if not that Sinn Fein would actually have won it.
Directly to the North Rowallane (i've nicked the name from the DEA) would be another of those rare DUP/UUP marginals.  There is not much marginal about the seats covering the former Ards district I would say - all four are safe for the DUP and the same may be said of the three seats covering the town of Bangor, though Bangor West has perhaps a bit more of a vote for the UUP and Alliance.   Holywood though does not look much like a DUP stronghold - it is possible that they would have won a plurality against a highly divided opposition which might have seen the Greens in contention as well as the UUP and Alliance. To me it has Alliance seat written all over it though.
The two seats covering the rump of the old Castlereagh district are of a different nature again.  Dundonald is rock-solid for the DUP while Newtownbreda is far from it.  Again it's possible the DUP won a plurality with a low vote share here against a very divided opposition (unlike in Holywood there is a large nationalist vote here, mainly SDLP) but its another seat where Alliance ought to be in with a good chance.
Finally, though Carryduff itself also has a nationalist vote, the seat bearing the name is dominated by DUP voting areas from Lisburn district and will be safe for that party while HIllsborough is more solid still.

Too many close contests here to give a total with any confidence.  Possible Alliance seats 0-2, possible UUP 0-3 Possible SDLP 1. Sinn Fein have at least 4 and maybe as many as 6.
The DUP can certainly count on 11 of the 22 seats but more likely win up to 15

[Pete Whitehead]

Belfast works very well with seats this size, all four-wards apiece and only one of them outside the +/- 10% limit. I've removed one ward (Belvoir) from the equation and added one from Lisburn (Derryaghy) which enables me to avoid crossing any of the obvious boundaries/faultlines
Included Lisburn in the map as well as the 15 from Belfast (as Antrim qualifies for 19 seats there isn't room for Lisburn on the Antrim map)



Sydenham containing much of the Titanic DEA is a solidly Unionist seat, notwithstanding the inclusion of the Short Strand.  I fancy that the DUP would have won it in 2017 but not without a strong challenge from Alliance.  Stormont would have comfortably been won by Alliance while Pottinger and Castlereagh would be more reliable for the DUP.
Moving into the mess that is South Belfast I can't call any of these three seats with confidence.  I should think the DUP just have the edge in Ormeau but there's a substantial enough Nationalist vote there as well as Alliance, Greens and all the rest.  Malone I think would still have been won by the SDLP and God alone knows who would have won in Botanic - possibly Sinn Fein.  Obviously things would become a bit clearer if these seats were actually fought under FPTP, but then its Belfast South, so maybe not much.

Heading up to North Belfast, Duncairn is the Castle DEA less the more nationalist western wards so should be safe for the DUP.  Cavehill contains the more Nationalist westen part but also Ballysillan and with the Unionist vote fully behind the DUP while the nationalist vote is much more split here (Cavehill itself being a Middle class, SDLP voting area) the DUP probably were ahead in the Assembly election in 2017 (even if not in the general election a few months later).
There is no issue of a split Nationalist vote in Ardoyne of course and no Unionist vote in any case.  
Shankill is obviously rock-solild for the DUP and the four West Belfast seats equally so for Sinn Fein.
I make it probably something like 7 DUP 6 SF 1 SDLP 1 Alliance but several of these are toss-ups.  Sinn Fein can certainly rely in all circumstance on 5 of those whereas the DUP can only count on about 4

The two Lisburn seats are boringly similar and of course both safe for the DUP

[Pete Whitehead]

Which just leaves the rest of Antrim




I think the DUP would have won everything here in 2017 except for Ballycastle which would have gone for Sinn Fein. Antrim, Larne and Airport could be vulnerable to the UUP and the latter along with Glengormley could be becoming increasingly dicey in terms of a nationalist threat as well as Randalstown where it is not new but in all these Unionists are in a majority. IN fact a United Unionist could possibly win Ballycastle as well.
Anyway 18 DUP 1 Sinn Fein in County Antrim in 2017 and while I can't work out meaningful totals for the province with so many toss-ups, I think even on the most pessimistic assessment the DUP have a majority (and I didn't really gerrymander at all)

[therealriga]

Jun 11, 2018 21:00:11 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Belfast works very well with seats this size, all four-wards apiece and only one of them outside the +/- 10% limit. I've removed one ward (Belvoir) from the equation and added one from Lisburn (Derryaghy) which enables me to avoid crossing any of the obvious boundaries/faultlines
Included Lisburn in the map as well as the 15 from Belfast (as Antrim qualifies for 19 seats there isn't room for Lisburn on the Antrim map)



Sydenham containing much of the Titanic DEA is a solidly Unionist seat, notwithstanding the inclusion of the Short Strand.  I fancy that the DUP would have won it in 2017 but not without a strong challenge from Alliance.  Stormont would have comfortably been won by Alliance while Pottinger and Castlereagh would be more reliable for the DUP.
Moving into the mess that is South Belfast I can't call any of these three seats with confidence.  I should think the DUP just have the edge in Ormeau but there's a substantial enough Nationalist vote there as well as Alliance, Greens and all the rest.  Malone I think would still have been won by the SDLP and God alone knows who would have won in Botanic - possibly Sinn Fein.  Obviously things would become a bit clearer if these seats were actually fought under FPTP, but then its Belfast South, so maybe not much.

Heading up to North Belfast, Duncairn is the Castle DEA less the more nationalist western wards so should be safe for the DUP.  Cavehill contains the more Nationalist westen part but also Ballysillan and with the Unionist vote fully behind the DUP while the nationalist vote is much more split here (Cavehill itself being a Middle class, SDLP voting area) the DUP probably were ahead in the Assembly election in 2017 (even if not in the general election a few months later).
There is no issue of a split Nationalist vote in Ardoyne of course and no Unionist vote in any case.  
Shankill is obviously rock-solild for the DUP and the four West Belfast seats equally so for Sinn Fein.
I make it probably something like 7 DUP 6 SF 1 SDLP 1 Alliance but several of these are toss-ups.  Sinn Fein can certainly rely in all circumstance on 5 of those whereas the DUP can only count on about 4

The two Lisburn seats are boringly similar and of course both safe for the DUP

Leaving out Belvoir and adding in Derryaghy won't go. When the real boundary commission proposed adding Derryaghy to Belfast West the residents fought tooth and nail against it and they ended up splitting a ward for the first time just to accommodate them.

Lagmore goes into the blue seat of Collin Glen.
Twinbrook, Dunmurry, Ladybrook and Finaghy make up Belfast Dunmurry. 
Belvoir replaces Finaghy in Belfast Malone.

Remaining boundaries look fine, though you could tweak the northern 12 wards. Names don't work in many cases. Oldpark (not Old Park) is the area around Cliftonville, Ardoyne and Waterworks wards.

Old Park > Cavehill
Ardoyne > Oldpark (or Cliftonville)
Falls > Lower Falls
Andersonstown > Upper Falls
Sydenham > Connswater (or Victoria)