North Belfast Westminster election

Yesterday Sinn Fein announced their candidate for N. Belfast, BBC story. It was a clever choice and will probably win them more votes. This is another seat where the SDLP have been in terminal decline for more than a decade but just refuse to die. 

This means the nationalist vote is split just enough to ensure the DUP hold this seat. The unionist vote will be round 46% to 47%, the nationalist vote about the same. The unionist and nationalist votes have been converging for a while, I think this will continue or the nationalist vote will be slightly higher than the unionist. But the unionist vote is not split so they will win. The Alliance party have also increased their vote here but remain well behind the two main tribes.