NORTHERN IRELAND:THE WESTMINSTER election in Northern Ireland will be "the most open in a generation", said First Minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson.
The campaign for the 18 seats, the first since the restoration of Stormont institutions in 2007, will take on particular importance because of predictions that the next House of Commons will have no overall majority. In that event the votes of Northern MPs could prove crucial.
The DUP, which took nine of the seats in the 2005 election, is under pressure to retain its position as the dominant force in unionism. However, the party has been rocked by controversies: the Robinsons, their business affairs and the MPs’ expenses scandal. These have played particularly badly with the unionist electorate.
Mrs Robinson resigned her parliamentary, council and Assembly seats in January and, though she had a substantial majority last time, her party will face a strong challenge from a UUP anxious to make political capital out of the DUP’s difficulties. Party founder Ian Paisley snr is standing down from Westminster after 40 years. His son, Ian jnr, has already begun campaigning for the DUP stronghold of North Antrim, where Jim Allister’s anti-powersharing Traditional Unionist Voice is mounting perhaps its most potent campaign anywhere in Northern Ireland.
The Ulster Unionists are contesting the election on a joint platform with the British Conservatives, and believe their offer of direct input into government at UK level will be well received.
But the move to form the Ulster Conservative and Unionist New Force (UCUNF) has already cost the party its sole MP. Lady Sylvia Hermon, a longstanding critic of David Cameron’s Tories, quit the party last week. She was joined by close colleague and Assembly member Alan McFarland.
Nevertheless, the party remains convinced that the Conservative link-up will find favour with unionists and they point to encouraging trends in last summer’s European poll and two council byelections.
Party leader Reg Empey said the move will “end Northern Ireland’s semi-detached status”.
Sinn Féin is defending five seats. Those held by Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Pat Doherty and Conor Murphy, appear rock solid. But Michelle Gildernew, the Stormont agriculture minister, could face a single unionist candidate in Fermanagh South Tyrone who could eat into her majority.
Negotiations among unionists to agree a unity candidate are ongoing, but relations between the Ulster Unionists and DUP are fractious.
The SDLP is defending three seats. Former party leader Mark Durkan has a 5,000 majority in his native Derry, but the other two seats will attract much interest.
Alasdair McDonnell provided the surprise of the last election by taking South Belfast, with unionists split between the two main parties and Sinn Féin well down the poll. Here too, efforts are continuing to find an agreed unionist candidate to fight Dr McDonnell, who is campaigning intensively.
New party leader Margaret Ritchie is standing to hold the South Down seat held by veteran MP Eddie McGrady since 1987. The votes of unionists anxious to prevent a Sinn Féin gain in the constituency could prove crucial.
The Alliance party, which is tipped to take the new justice department at Stormont next Monday, said it relished the campaign. Leader David Ford said a breakthrough for his party, which has never held a Westminster seat, would ensure progress on cross-community politics.