East Londonderry (UK Parliament constituency)

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East Londonderry County constituency

East Londonderry shown within Northern Ireland
Created:	1983
MP:	Gregory Campbell
Party:	Democratic Unionist
Type:	House of Commons
Districts:	Coleraine, Limavady
EP constituency:	Northern Ireland

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

1 Boundaries
- 1.1 Proposed Boundary changes
2 History
3 Westminster elections
- 3.1 Members of Parliament
- 3.2 Elections
4 Assembly and Forum elections
5 See also

[edit] Boundaries

The seat was created in boundary changes in 1983, as part of an expansion of Northern Ireland's constituencies from 12 to 17, and was predominantly made up from the old Londonderry constituency. Since further revisions in 1995 (when it lost parts of the district of Magherafelt to the Mid Ulster constituency) it now covers exactly the same area as the districts of Coleraine and Limavady.

[edit] Proposed Boundary changes

At the time of writing the Boundary Commission has published provisional recommendations for modifying the boundaries of constituencies in Northern Ireland. For East Londonderry, it proposes to transfer two rural wards in Derry district from the Foyle constituency. However the proposals are likely to come under public scrutiny and it is possible that arguments will be successfully made for maintaining co-terminous boundaries with local government districts.

[edit] History

The constituency is overwhelming unionist, though in many elections nationalists have polled close to 33% of the vote. The main interest in elections has been the contest between the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party. The UUP were normally ahead of the DUP until the 2001 general election when the DUP finally overtook them.

The 2001 election was seen at a province wide level as a battle over the Good Friday Agreement with the DUP opposed to it and most of the UUP in favour, however ironically this situation was seemingly reversed in East Londonderry, where the sitting Ulster Unionist MP, William Ross, was completely opposed to all involvement with the Agreement and its institutions, whilst the DUP candidate, Gregory Campbell, was a minister in the Executive set up by the Agreement. Many commentators joked that the DUP's gain meant that East Londonderry now had a more pro-Agreement MP than before.

For the history of the equivalent constituency prior to 1983, please see Londonderry (constituency).

[edit] Westminster elections

[edit] Members of Parliament

The Member of Parliament since the 2001 general election is Gregory Campbell of the Democratic Unionist Party. In that election he defeated William Ross of the Ulster Unionist Party who had represented East Londonderry since 1983 and its predecessor seat of Londonderry between 1974 and 1983.

Constituency created (1983)
1983 — 2001: William Ross, Ulster Unionist
2001 — present: Gregory Campbell, Democratic Unionist

[edit] Elections

General Election 2005: East Londonderry
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic Unionist	Gregory Campbell	15,225	42.9	+10.8
	Ulster Unionist	David McClarty	7,498	21.1	-6.3
	Social Democratic & Labour	John Dallat	6,077	17.1	-3.7
	Sinn Féin	Billy Leonard	5,709	16.1	+0.5
	Alliance (NI)	Yvonne Boyle	924	2.6	-1.5
	Independent	Malcolm Samuel	71	0.2	N/A
Majority			7,727	21.8
Turnout			35,504	60.3	-5.9
	Democratic Unionist hold		Swing	+8.5

General Election 2001: East Londonderry
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic Unionist	Gregory Campbell	12,813	32.1	+6.5
	Ulster Unionist	William Ross	10,912	27.4	-8.2
	Social Democratic & Labour	John Dallat	8,298	20.8	-0.9
	Sinn Féin	Francie Brolly	6,221	15.6	+6.5
	Alliance (NI)	Yvonne Boyle	1,625	4.1	-2.3
Majority			1,901	4.7
Turnout			39,869	66.2	+1.4
	Democratic Unionist gain from Ulster Unionist		Swing

General Election 1997: East Londonderry
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Ulster Unionist	William Ross	13,558	36.0	-21.6
	Democratic Unionist	Gregory Campbell	9,767	26.0	+26.0
	Social Democratic & Labour	Arthur Doherty	8,273	22.0	-0.4
	Sinn Féin	Malachy O'Kane	3,463	9.0	-1.1
	Alliance (NI)	Yvonne Boyle	2,427	6.0	-0.8
	Conservative	James Holmes	436	1.0	-2.0
	Natural Law	Clare Gallen	100	0.26	N/A
	National Democrats	Ian Anderson	81	0.21	N/A
Majority			3,794	10.0	-25.2
Turnout			38,102	64.77	-5.03
	Ulster Unionist hold		Swing	-23.8

General Election 1992: East Londonderry
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Ulster Unionist	William Ross	30,370	57.6
	Social Democratic & Labour	Arthur Doherty	11,843	22.4
	Sinn Féin	Pauline Davey-Kennedy	5,320	10.1
	Alliance (NI)	Paddy McGowan	3,613	6.8
	Conservative	Alan Elder	1,589	3.0	N/A
Majority			18,527	35.2
Turnout			52,735	69.8	+0.7
	Ulster Unionist hold		Swing

General Election 1987: East Londonderry
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Ulster Unionist	William Ross	29,532	60.5
	Social Democratic & Labour	Arthur Doherty	9,375	19.2
	Sinn Féin	John Davey	5,464	11.2
	Alliance (NI)	Paddy McGowan	3,237	6.6
	Workers Party	Francis Donnelly	935	1.9
	Ecology	Malcolm Samuel	281	0.6	N/A
Majority			18,527	35.2
Turnout			48,824	68.7
	Ulster Unionist hold		Swing

East Londonderry by-election, 1986
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Ulster Unionist	William Ross	30,922	93.9	+ 56.0
	"For the Anglo-Irish Agreement"	"Peter Barry"	515	2.6	N/A
Majority			28,921	87.8	+ 73.7
Turnout			32,923	46.8	- 29.5
	Ulster Unionist hold		Swing

General Election 1983: East Londonderry
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Ulster Unionist	William Ross	19,469	37.9	N/A
	Democratic Unionist	William McClure	12,207	23.8	N/A
	Social Democratic & Labour	Arthur Doherty	9,397	18.3	N/A
	Sinn Féin	John Davey	7,073	13.8	N/A
	Alliance (NI)	Martha McGrath	2,401	4.7	N/A
	Workers Party	Francis Donnelly	819	1.6	N/A
Majority			7,262	14.1	N/A
Turnout			51,366	76.3	N/A
	Ulster Unionist hold		Swing	N/A

[edit] Assembly and Forum elections

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

Francis Brolly - Sinn Féin
Gregory Campbell - Democratic Unionist Party
John Dallat - Social Democratic and Labour Party
David McClarty - Ulster Unionist Party
George Robinson - Democratic Unionist Party
Norman Hillis - Ulster Unionist Party

In the 1998 election the six MLAs elected were:

Pauline Armitage- Ulster Unionist Party
Gregory Campbell - Democratic Unionist Party
John Dallat - Social Democratic and Labour Party
Boyd Douglas - Independent Unionist
Arthur Doherty - Social Democratic and Labour Party
David McClarty - Ulster Unionist Party

Changes 1998-2003

Boyd Douglas joined with other independent Unionists to form the United Unionist Coalition on September 14, 1998.
Arthur Doherty resigned from the Assembly on September 1, 2002 and was replaced by Michael Coyle, also SDLP.
Pauline Armitage resigned the UUP whip on November 9, 2001 following her failure to support David Trimble in a vote to re-elect him as First Minister of Northern Ireland. She subsequently sat as an independent unionist and unsuccessfully defended her seat in the 2003 election as a candidate of the UK Unionist Party.

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

Robert Bolton - Democratic Unionist Party
David Brewster- Ulster Unionist Party
Arthur Doherty - Social Democratic and Labour Party
Robert Stewart - Democratic Unionist Party
Robert White- Ulster Unionist Party

[edit] See also

List of Parliamentary constituencies in Northern Ireland

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)