Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention | |
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Type | |
Type | |
History | |
Established | 1 May 1975 |
Disbanded | 4 March 1976 |
Preceded by | Northern Ireland Assembly (1973) |
Succeeded by | Northern Ireland Assembly (1982) |
Seats | 78 |
Elections | |
STV |
Interim bodies |
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Elections |
Members |
See also |
The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention (NICC) was an elected body set up in 1975 by the United Kingdom Labour government of Harold Wilson as an attempt to deal with constitutional issues surrounding the status of Northern Ireland.
The idea for a constitutional convention was first mooted by the Northern Ireland Office in its white paper The Northern Ireland Constitution, published on 4 July 1974. [1] The paper laid out plans for elections to a body which would seek agreement on a political settlement for Northern Ireland. The proposals became law with the enactment of the Northern Ireland Act 1974 later that month. With Lord Chief Justice Robert Lowry appointed to chair the new body, elections were announced for 1 May 1975.
The elections were held for the 78-member body using the single transferable vote system of proportional representation in each of Northern Ireland's twelve Westminster constituencies. Initially the body was intended to be purely consultative, although it was hoped that executive and legislative functions could be devolved to the NICC once a cross-community agreement had been reached.
Unionists opposed to the NICC once again banded together under the umbrella of the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) and this coalition proved the most successful, taking 46 seats.
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All 78 seats to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention 40 seats were needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Percentage of seats gained by each of the party. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Party | Votes | % | +/- | Seats | % | +/- | ||||
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United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) | ||||||||||
Ulster Unionist | 167,214 | 25.4 | -10.4 | 19 | 24.4 | -12 | ||||
DUP | 97,073 | 14.8 | +4.0 | 12 | 15.4 | +4 | ||||
Vanguard | 83,507 | 12.7 | +1.2 | 14 | 17.9 | +7 | ||||
Ind. Loyalist (UUUC) | 5,687 | 0.9 | N/A | 1 | 1.3 | +1 | ||||
Total UUUC | 353,481 | 53.8 | -4.3 | 46 | 59.0 | 0 | ||||
Non-UUUC | ||||||||||
SDLP | 156,049 | 23.7 | +1.6 | 17 | 21.8 | -2 | ||||
Alliance | 64,657 | 9.8 | +0.6 | 8 | 10.3 | 0 | ||||
Unionist Party NI | 50,891 | 7.7 | N/A | 5 | 6.4 | +5 | ||||
Republican Clubs | 14,515 | 2.2 | +0.4 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | ||||
NI Labour | 9,102 | 1.4 | -1.2 | 1 | 1.3 | 0 | ||||
Ind. Unionist | 4,453 | 0.6 | -1.3 | 1 | 1.3 | 0 | ||||
UUP (non-UUUC) | 2,583 | 0.4 | N/A | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | ||||
Independent | 2,052 | 0.3 | -0.3 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | ||||
Communist Party | 378 | 0.1 | +0.1 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | ||||
Total | 658,161 | 78 | ||||||||
19 | 17 | 14 | 12 | 8 | 5 | 3 |
UUP | SDLP | Vanguard | DUP | APNI | UPNI | Oth |
Source: Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention Elections 1975
A number of leading Northern Ireland politicians were elected to the NICC, increasing hope that the body might achieve some of its aims. Also elected were some younger figures who went on to become leading figures in the future of Northern Ireland politics. These included:
The elections left the body fundamentally weakened from its inception as an overall majority had been obtained by those Unionists who opposed power sharing as a concept. As a result, the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention Report published on 20 November 1975 [2] recommended only a return to majority rule as had previously existed under the old Parliament of Northern Ireland government. As such a solution was completely unacceptable to the nationalist parties, the NICC was placed on hiatus. The NICC report in its conclusion said of mandatory power-sharing with a role for the SDLP in a devolved government:
...no country ought to be forced to have in its Cabinet any person whose political philosophy and attitudes have revealed his opposition to the very existence of that State. [2]
Hoping to gain something from the exercise, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees announced that the NICC would be reconvened on 3 February 1976.[ citation needed ] However, a series of meetings held between the UUUC and the SDLP failed to reach any agreement about SDLP participation in government, and so the reconvened NICC once again failed to achieve a solution with cross-community support. As a result, Rees announced the dissolution of the body on 4 March 1976 and Northern Ireland remained under direct rule.[ citation needed ]
On the face of it, the NICC was a total failure as it did not achieve its aims of agreement between the two sides or of introducing 'rolling devolution' (gradual introduction of devolution as and when the parties involved saw fit to accept it). Nevertheless, coming as it did not long after the Conservative-sponsored Sunningdale Agreement, the NICC indicated that no British government would be prepared to re-introduce majority rule in Northern Ireland. During the debates William Craig accepted the possibility of power-sharing with the SDLP, a move that split the UUUC and precipitated the eventual collapse of Vanguard.
The idea of electing a consultative body to thrash out a deal for devolution was also retained and in 1996 it was revived when the Northern Ireland Forum was elected on largely the same lines and with the same overall purpose. The Forum formed part of a process that led to the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movement. Following the partition of Ireland, it was the governing party of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. It was supported by most unionist voters throughout the conflict known as the Troubles, during which time it was often referred to as the Official Unionist Party (OUP).
Unionism is a political tradition on the island of Ireland that favours political union with Great Britain and professes loyalty to the British Crown and constitution. As the overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority, following Catholic Emancipation (1829) unionism mobilised to keep Ireland part of the United Kingdom and to defeat the efforts of Irish nationalists to restore a separate Irish parliament. Since Partition (1921), as Ulster Unionism its goal has been to maintain Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom and to resist a transfer of sovereignty to an all-Ireland republic. Within the framework of a 1998 peace settlement, unionists in Northern Ireland have had to accommodate Irish nationalists in a devolved government, while continuing to rely on the link with Britain to secure their cultural and economic interests.
The 1998 Northern Ireland Assembly election took place on Thursday, 25 June 1998. This was the first election to the new devolved Northern Ireland Assembly. Six members from each of Northern Ireland's eighteen Westminster Parliamentary constituencies were elected by single transferable vote, giving a total of 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs).
The Northern Ireland Executive is the devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branch of the legislature – the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is answerable to the assembly and was initially established according to the terms of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which followed the Good Friday Agreement. The executive is referred to in the legislation as the Executive Committee of the assembly and is an example of consociationalist ("power-sharing") government.
The 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election was held on Wednesday, 26 November 2003, after being suspended for just over a year. It was the second election to take place since the devolved assembly was established in 1998. Each of Northern Ireland's eighteen Westminster Parliamentary constituencies elected six members by single transferable vote, giving a total of 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). The election was contested by 18 parties and many independent candidates.
Arthur Brian Deane Faulkner, Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick,, was the sixth and last Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, from March 1971 until his resignation in March 1972. He was also the chief executive of the short-lived Northern Ireland Executive during the first half of 1974.
The Sunningdale Agreement was an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland. The agreement was signed at Northcote House in Sunningdale Park, located in Sunningdale, Berkshire, on 9 December 1973. Unionist opposition, violence and a general strike caused the collapse of the agreement in May 1974.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement was a 1985 treaty between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland which aimed to help bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The treaty gave the Irish government an advisory role in Northern Ireland's government while confirming that there would be no change in the constitutional position of Northern Ireland unless a majority of its citizens agreed to join the Republic. It also set out conditions for the establishment of a devolved consensus government in the region.
The Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party (VUPP), informally known as Ulster Vanguard, was a unionist political party which existed in Northern Ireland between 1972 and 1978. Led by William Craig, the party emerged from a split in the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and was closely affiliated with several loyalist paramilitary groups. The party was set up in opposition to power sharing with Irish nationalist parties. It opposed the Sunningdale Agreement and was involved in extra-parliamentary activity against the agreement. However, in 1975, during discussions on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland in the constitutional convention, William Craig suggested the possibility of voluntary power sharing with the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party. In consequence the party split, with dissenters forming the United Ulster Unionist Party. Thereafter Vanguard declined and following poor results in the 1977 local government elections, Craig merged the remainder of Vanguard into the UUP in February 1978.
The Unionist Party of Northern Ireland was a political party founded by Brian Faulkner in September 1974.
Anne Letitia Dickson CBE is a former Northern Ireland Unionist politician.
John Warden Brooke, 2nd Viscount Brookeborough, PC (NI) was a Northern Irish politician. He was the son of Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.
Henry William West was a politician in Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party from 1974 until 1979.
The United Ulster Unionist Council was a body that sought to bring together the Unionists opposed to the Sunningdale Agreement in Northern Ireland.
The 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly elections were held on 20 October 1982 in an attempt to re-establish devolution and power-sharing in Northern Ireland. Although the Northern Ireland Assembly officially lasted until 1986 it met infrequently and achieved very little.
The Northern Ireland Assembly established in 1982 represented an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to restore the devolution to Northern Ireland which had been suspended 10 years previously. The Assembly was abolished in 1986.
A power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive was formed following the Northern Ireland Assembly elections of 1973. The executive served as the devolved government of Northern Ireland from 1 January 1974 until its collapse on 28 May 1974.
Leslie Morrell is a former unionist politician in Northern Ireland.
Since 1998, Northern Ireland has devolved government within the United Kingdom. The government and Parliament of the United Kingdom are responsible for reserved and excepted matters. Reserved matters are a list of policy areas, which the Westminster Parliament may devolve to the Northern Ireland Assembly at some time in future. Excepted matters are never expected to be considered for devolution. On all other matters, the Northern Ireland Executive together with the 90-member Northern Ireland Assembly may legislate and govern for Northern Ireland. Additionally, devolution in Northern Ireland is dependent upon participation by members of the Northern Ireland Executive in the North/South Ministerial Council, which co-ordinates areas of co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.