The (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.
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.
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.
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 .
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David Ford ,
Naomi Long .]]
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 . 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.
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.
Alliance are linked with the British
Liberal Democrats and are members of
Liberal International and the
European Liberal Democrat And Reform Party .
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.)
