Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), is a political party operating in Northern Ireland. It has long sought to bridge the gap between the province's two main communities and is avowedly non-sectarian.

Aims & Objectives

"As Northern Ireland's cross-community and anti-sectarian party, to work on behalf of all sections of the community, to build a fair, peaceful and prosperous society that cherishes diversity, and is committed to human rights, equality of citizenship and social justice."

Philosophy

Over the past 30 years, and particularly since the mid-1990s Alliance's political philosophy has veered away from non-sectarian Unionism towards a more liberal, anti-ethnic position. While the Good Friday Agreement has attempted to implement consociational power sharing, Alliance has continued to argue for a more traditional, voluntary form of collective responsibility within a Northern Ireland Executive government, which is not provided for at present.

The Alliance Party was founded on the back of efforts by the New Ulster Movement, which was established as a moderating influence upon the Unionist Party. After Nationalist politicians withdrew their role as official Opposition at Stormont, and the resignation of Unionist leader Terence O’Neil in 1969, the NUM split between those who wished to remain a pressure group for the Unionist Party and those who saw reform only through the establishment of a new political party. The latter broke off and formed the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, on 21 April 1970.

As Alliance viewed the situation, the major problem of Northern Ireland was the division between Protestant and Catholic. The turmoil had its origins in that division and not in the partition of Ireland. “Partition was the result of the divisions and not the cause of them.” (John Cushnahan, 1979)

The party’s founding members resolved to change the “traditional mould of sectarian politics” in Northern Ireland, by launching a party deliberately set out to win support from “both sections of the community”. The party’s founding principles were an attempt to “allay the fundamental fears”: namely, of Protestants being coerced into a united Ireland, and Catholics being condemned to a second-class citizenship within Northern Ireland.

The distinguishing feature of Alliance is its belief in the legitimacy of a distinctive Northern community, one that has more in common than what divides it, with most inhabitants speaking a common language, sharing some form of Christianity, and not separated by distinguishable racial or physical characteristics. “Its people … are one community … living in what has been called a place apart, but sharing a great deal with the rest of this island, the rest of these islands, and the rest of the developed world.” (Alliance 1992)

Alliance does not view unionism and nationalism as distinct communities, but as “political positions”. Furthermore, Alliance sees identity as an individual matter, originating in historical contexts, producing unionist and nationalist traditions. Alliance is at times seen as representing a “third tradition”. “In the context of Northern Ireland it includes those who, whether in politics, culture, religion, or in private life have refused to be catagorised as Orange or Green.” (Alliance 1992)

Alliance are linked with the British Liberal Democrats and are members of Liberal International and the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.

History

Early growth

They were formed in April, 1970 as an alternative to the established parties, particularly the Ulster Unionist Party. In the context of a rapidly worsening political crisis, the party aimed not only to present an alternative to what they perceived as sectarian parties, but to make that the primary policy of the party in contrast to the Northern Ireland Labour Party and Ulster Liberal Party. Alliance expressly aimed to act as a bridge between the Protestant and Catholic sections of the community, with a secondary goal of attracting support from Northern Ireland's Jewish community and its small but steadily growing Asian (Chinese, Indian, Pakistani) population, the vast majority of whom are neither Catholic nor Protestant.

The Party's founding principles were expressly in favour of Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom, although in contrast to the Unionist parties, this was expressed in socio-economic rather than ethnic terms. It also placed great emphasis on the consent principle and therefore only supported the Northern Ireland's position within the UK as long as the people of NI wished it.

The party was boosted in 1972 when three Members of the Parliament of Northern Ireland joined the party (one from the Nationalist Party, one from the Ulster Unionist Party and one Independent). Stratton Mills, an Ulster Unionist/Conservative member of the Westminster Parliament for North Belfast also joined, providing Alliance with its only House of Commons representation to date. Its first electoral challenge was the District Council elections of May, 1973 when they managed to win a respectable 13.6% of the votes cast. In the elections to Stormont which followed the next month the party polled 9.2% and won eight seats. The then party leader, Oliver Napier and his deputy Bob Cooper became part of the short-lived power sharing executive body. Alliance's vote peaked in the 1977 District Council elections when it obtained 14.4% of the vote and had 74 Councillors elected. In 1979, Party Leader Oliver Napier came closer than Alliance have come before or since to electing a Westminster MP, polling just 928 votes short of Peter Robinson's winning total in East Belfast, albeit placing third in a three-way marginal.

Stabilisation and decline

Alliance was seriously damaged by the IRA Hunger Strike of 1981, which deeply polarised Northern Ireland politics, and indirectly led to the emergence of Sinn Féin as a serious political force. The Party supported the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, and despite claims that this would fatally damage its soft Unionist support, Alliance rebounded to pick up 10.0% of the vote in the 1987 British General Election, with some voters rejecting the tacit mainstream Unionist support for violence in the aftermath of the Agreement. New leader, John Alderdice, polled 32.0% of the vote in East Belfast, the highest percentage ever achieved in an individual seat in a Westminster election, while Alliance came within 15,000 votes of both the DUP and Sinn Féin across Northern Ireland. In 1988, in Alliance's keynote post-Anglo Irish Agreement document, "Governing with Consent", Alderdice called for a devolved power-sharing government. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Alliance's vote stabilised at between 7% and 10%.

After the IRA and Loyalist ceasefires in 1994, Alliance became the first non-Nationalist party to enter into talks with Sinn Féin, was an active participant in the talks which lead to the Good Friday Agreement, which it supported strongly.

The Alliance Party polled fairly poorly for the 1996 elections for the Northern Ireland Forum, and the 1998 election for the Northern Ireland Assembly winning around 6.5% of the vote each time. This did enable the party to win six seats in the Assembly.

The Good Friday Agreement era

John Alderdice resigned as party leader in 1998 to take up the post of the Assembly's Presiding Officer. He was replaced by Séan Neeson, who himself resigned as party leader in September, 2001. Neeson was replaced by current party leader, David Ford, a member of the assembly for South Antrim.

It was predicted that Alliance would suffer electorally as a new centrist challenger established itself in Northern Irish politics, the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, whilst the main Unionist and Nationalist parties both moderated their position on cross-community co-operation. Another problem for the APNI was that the rules of the Northern Ireland Assembly require major votes (such as the election of a First Minister) to have the support of both a majority of Unionist assembly members and a majority of Nationalist assembly members, thus diminishing the importance of parties such as Alliance which are not aligned to either of these two blocs.

Nevertheless, in the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections, 2003, Alliance held all their seats, while the Women's Coalition lost both of theirs. However Alliance's vote fell to just 3.7%. In the European Elections of 2004, Alliance gave strong support to Independent candidate John Gilliland who polled 6.6% of the vote, the highest for an non-communal candidate in a European election since 1979. Since the beginning of the Northern Ireland peace process, the centre ground has been relentlessly squeezed in Northern Ireland politics. The support for Gilliland's candidature, which was also supported by parties such as the Workers' Party and Northern Ireland Conservatives, reflected a desire to reunite the fragmented and weakened non-communal bloc in Northern Ireland politics.

In the 5 May, 2005 British General Election, they contested 12 seats and polled 3.9% of the vote. In the simultaneous elections to Northern Ireland's local authorities, they polled 5.0% of first preference votes and had 30 Councillors elected.

Regionalisation of Alliance's vote

One trend over time with Alliance's vote is that in contrast to 1973, when Alliance support was dispersed across Northern Ireland, APNI have increasingly polled best in the Greater Belfast hinterland. For example the 1977 elections, while representing an overall increase for Alliance, masked a sharp decline in vote share in many Western councils. In the 12 councils covering the former counties of Londonderry, Tyrone, Armagh and Fermanagh their vote only rose in Omagh, it remained static in Magherafelt and fell in the other 10 councils (these being Fermanagh, Dungannon, Cookstown, Strabane, Londonderry, Limavady, Coleraine, Newry&Mourne, Armagh and Craigavon.) Overall in these 12 councils the number of Alliance councillors fell from 18 in 1973 to 10 in 1977. In contrast, in the rest of the province Alliance increased their number of councillors from 45 to 60.

This trend continued in the 1980s and early 1990s as Alliance lost their last remaining councillors in North Antrim (Ballymoney in 1985 and Ballymena in 1981 - although the seat was temporarily regained in 1989.)

The party won 8 council seats across Belfast in 1985 although that has been reduced today to 4 and the party has been virtually wiped out in North and West Belfast. Both seats in the Falls Road area of West Belfast were lost after the death and resignation of their councillors there in 1987 while their seat in North Belfast was lost in 1993 regained 4 years later and lost again, seemingly for good, in 2001. In the neighbouring areas of Dunmurry Cross (Twinbrook/Dunmurry) and Macedon (Rathcoole) Alliance lost their councillors in 1989 and 1994 respectively.

Today Alliance only have councillors in 8 of the 18 Westminster parliamentary constituencies - all in the East. (In contrast in 1973 Alliance had representation in 16 out of the 18 current Westminster constituencies.)

Leaders of Alliance

External link

Alliance Party official site

1970 establishments | Liberal parties | Political parties in Northern Ireland | Alliance Party politicians | Alliance Party of Northern Ireland