The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on 12 December 2019 to elect all 650 members of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

, including 18 seats in Northern Ireland. 1,293,971 people were eligible to vote, up 51,273 from the 2017 general election. 62.09% of eligible voters turned out, down 3.5 percentage points from the last general election. For the first time in history, traditional Irish nationalist parties won more seats than traditional unionist parties.

Electoral system

MPs were elected in 18 Single Member constituencies by

first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

Background

The election was called on 29 October 2019 under the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019. At the 2017 election, the nationalist

Social Democratic and Labour Party The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland ...

(SDLP) and the

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule ...

(UUP) lost all of their seats. The DUP won 10 seats, Sinn Féin won 7 seats, and Independent Unionist

Sylvia Hermon Sylvia Eileen, Lady Hermon (née Paisley; born 11 August 1955) is a retired Unionist politician from Northern Ireland. She served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of North Down from 2001 to 2019. She was first elected fo ...

was also elected. The

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

ended in a

hung parliament A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisl ...

, and the

Democratic Unionist Party The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a unionist, loyalist, and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who led the party for the next 37 years. Currently led by ...

(DUP) signed a

confidence and supply agreement In a parliamentary democracy based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply are required for a ruling cabinet to retain power in the lower house. A confidence-and-supply agreement is one whereby a party or independent members of par ...

with the Conservative Party. In 2018, Sinn Féin MP for West Tyrone, Barry McElduff, resigned after a social media post he made caused controversy regarding perceived

sectarianism Sectarianism is a political or cultural conflict between two groups which are often related to the form of government which they live under. Prejudice, discrimination, or hatred can arise in these conflicts, depending on the political status quo ...

on the Kingsmill massacre. The party won a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election use ...

later, but with a plurality instead of a majority. In the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held between 23 and 26 May 2019, the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent more than 512 million peopl ...

, Sinn Féin, the DUP, and the Alliance Party each won a seat.

Participating parties

102 candidates stood in the general election. The Alliance Party was the only party standing in all 18 seats. The DUP stood in 17 seats, the UUP in 16, and both Sinn Féin and the SDLP in 15 seats.

Aontú Aontú (; "Unite") is an all-Ireland political party that was formally launched in January 2019, and operates in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Ideologically, Aontú is opposed to abortion and combines elements of social co ...

stood in 7 seats, the

Northern Ireland Conservatives The Northern Ireland Conservatives is a section of the United Kingdom's Conservative Party that operates in Northern Ireland. The party won 0.03% of the vote in the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election and 0.7% of the vote in the 2019 United ...

in 4, the

Green Party of Northern Ireland The Green Party Northern Ireland (sometimes abbreviated as Green Party NI) is a political party in Northern Ireland. Like many green party, green political parties around the world, its origins lie in the anti-nuclear, labour movement, labour a ...

in 3, and

People Before Profit People Before Profit ( ga, Pobal Roimh Bhrabús, PBP) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left Trotskyist political party formed in October 2005. It is active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Histo ...

and the

UK Independence Party The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member ...

in 2.

Traditional Unionist Voice The Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. In common with all other Northern Irish unionist parties, the TUV's political programme has as its sine qua non the preservation of Northern Ireland's place ...

did not stand in this election. There were also three independent candidates. Sylvia Hermon did not contest this election. Sinn Féin operates on an all-Ireland basis. Their MPs in Westminster practice

abstentionism Abstentionism is standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate i ...

, meaning they do not take their seats in the House of Commons. Aontú, who like Sinn Féin are an abstentionist all-Ireland party, was formed in January 2019.

Opinion polling

2019 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland

Results

Results by constituency

Footnotes

References

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

2019 elections in Northern Ireland