The Conservative Party was first represented in Ireland in the form of the Irish Conservative Party, which operated across the island. The Irish Conservatives became part of the Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA) in 1891. By this stage, the Conservatives' electoral base was largely restricted to Ulster and Dublin. The IUA's Members of Parliament took the Conservative Party whip at Westminster, but the organisation retained a level of independence. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the IUA dissolved.[5] Its successor in Northern Ireland was the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP).
1922–1972
From 1922, the Conservative Party maintained formal links with the UUP, its members taking the Conservative whip in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, much like the then-independent Unionist Party of Scotland, which integrated into the party in England and Wales in the 1960s. This relationship broke down in 1972, following Unionist opposition to the proposed Sunningdale Agreement, when all but one of the UUP MPs resigned the Conservative whip. The sole exception, Stratton Mills, left the UUP and continued to take the whip for a further year, before joining the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. Another UUP MP, Robin Chichester-Clark, became Minister of State for Employment in the Conservative government from April 1972 to February 1974.
The 1992 general election saw the Conservatives stand in Northern Ireland for the first time. Laurence Kennedy came closest to winning a seat in North Down, finishing second behind James Kilfedder and gaining 32% of the vote.[9]
Relationship with the Ulster Unionist Party
The Conservatives have for some time maintained a close relationship with the UUP. The former UUP leader and First Minister, David Trimble was elevated to the House of Lords on losing his Commons seat. Shortly after standing down from the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2007, he took the Conservative whip. On doing so he made it clear that he would not be campaigning on behalf of the Northern Ireland Conservatives in opposition to his former party.[10]
In July 2008, David Cameron and Sir Reg Empey announced a working group to develop a partnership with the UUP.[11] This was implemented in 2009, forming the "Ulster Conservatives and Unionists" for certain electoral purposes, though the Vice Chairman of Conservatives NI, Jeffrey Peel, resigned from the Joint Committee created by both parties.[12] Also, Lady Sylvia Hermon, the UUP MP for North Down, resigned the UUP whip in March 2010 in protest at the tie-up.[13]
On 14 June 2012, the Conservatives in Northern Ireland were relaunched as NI Conservatives.[14] The party is now autonomous on devolved matters, although it remains a full part of the national Conservative and Unionist Party. The party had a councillor on Larne Council, Dr Brian Dunn.[15] Dunn was first elected as a UUP candidate in 2001, and was last elected as an independent before joining the Conservatives.[16] He did not stand for re-election in 2014 for health reasons. The party nominated Mark Brotherston as its candidate in the European Parliament elections in 2014,[17] but he failed to be elected, coming last with 0.7% of first preference votes.
The party stood in 16 out of the 18 Northern Ireland constituencies at the 2015 general election,[18] although most of its candidates were from outside Northern Ireland.[19] Although the Conservative Party won a majority of seats UK-wide, the party received only 1.3% of the vote in Northern Ireland (9,055 votes) and failed to win any seats.
NI Conservative vote share by percentage in the 2015 General Election
They stood 12 candidates in 11 of the 18 constituencies in the 2016 Assembly elections. They won no seats, with candidates obtaining between 0.1% and 2.1% of the first preference votes. They stood one candidate each in 13 of the 18 constituencies in the 2017 Assembly elections, but won no seats. The Northern Ireland Conservatives stood candidates in 7 of the 18 constituencies in the 2017 general election. They won a total of 3,895 votes and no seats.[21]
The party nominated Amandeep Singh Bhogal as its candidate for the 2019 European Parliament election, but he was not elected, coming last with 662 first preference votes (0.12%).[22]
Organisation
Chairman
#
Leader
Term start
Term end
1
Irwin Armstrong
2012
2014
2
Harry Cullen
2014
2016
3
Alan Dunlop
2016
2019
4
Neil Johnston
2019
2020
5
Alan Dunlop
2020
2021
6
Matthew Robinson
2021
2023
7
Paul Leeman
2023
incumbent
People
As of the NI Conservatives AGM in June 2024, the members of the Executive Council are as follows:[23]
The party's best performance came in the 1992 general election, when party candidates polled 44,608 votes across Northern Ireland: 5.7% of the total. Its best performance came in the North Down constituency, where the local party chairman, Laurence Kennedy, came second, 5,000 votes behind the sitting MP James Kilfedder.
Subsequently, the party declined rapidly. In the 1993 council elections, the party lost five council seats, being reduced to six councillors across Northern Ireland. In North Down, the party's support more than halved, from 25% in 1989 to 11% in 1993, although they narrowly managed to win a seat in all four North Down electoral areas. Laurence Kennedy quit Northern Irish politics a few months later, while the party's councillors in Lisburn and Carrick left the party to sit as Independent Unionists. In 1997 they were reduced to two council seats in North Down. Both councillors retired before the 2001 council elections and the party failed to defend one of its seats in 2001 with the other lost, leaving them without elected representation in Northern Ireland.
In the 2024 general election, the party gained a total of 553 votes across NI; this was down from their 2019 election share.[3][25]
Westminster elections
For results of other NI parties which were affiliated historically with the Conservatives, see the following pages:
^AnnouncementArchived 3 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine "I will no longer be campaigning in Northern Ireland for Ulster Unionists, but, having got through the Assembly election in good shape, I am confident for their future. I want to thank all those in Ulster Unionism for their help and friendship over the years, to assure them that I will continue to be committed to Ulster’s place within the Union and that I will never campaign against them."
