Northern Ireland

South Belfast: Claire Hanna unseats DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly with majority over 15,000

By Brendan Hughes

The new MP for South Belfast has praised a pro-Remain voting agreement between parties as "bearing fruit" across the north.

It had been expected to be a tight race between Claire Hanna of the SDLP and the DUP incumbent Emma Little-Pengelly, but when the results were confirmed it emerged that the gap was over 15,000 votes.

Ms Hanna topped the poll with 27,079 votes ahead of Ms Little-Pengelly with 11,678 votes.

Both Sinn Fein and the Green Party took the decision not to run candidates in South Belfast, instead backing Ms Hanna on a pro-Remain platform.

Ms Hanna paid tribute to Ms Little-Pengelly, saying her hard work and dedication to the constituency "had never been in doubt".

She also paid tribute to Green Party leader Clare Bailey for her decision to back her, saying the pro Remain arrangements "was clearly a move that had borne fruit across Northern Ireland in the seats that have been gained".

"We know there is no good form of Brexit, we have many, many challenges ahead of us but we do know that the relationships that we have to protect within Northern Ireland and on an east west basis and north south basis have to be nurtured," she said.

"We'll have to do that at Westminster and hopefully we can do it in a restored executive."

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She said her party was committed to restoring powersharing at Stormont when negotiations resume next week.

"People just want this over, they know we need devolution to protect us and I hope that's a message that will be heard loudly and clearly in the talks."

Ms Little-Pengelly congratulated Ms Hanna before thanking her own DUP team and commenting: "We knew things were going to be very challenging for us in South Belfast in a constituency with 33,000 people voted remain at a time when Brexit has not been resolved one way or another.

"It was always going to be a difficult battle, with Sinn Féin and the Green Party not standing that battle became even more difficult".

The vote for Alliance MLA Paula Bradshaw, who was considered the SDLP's main competition for pro-Remain support, was squeezed in the campaign race.

She received 6,786 votes – a fall of almost four per cent on her vote in the 2017 Westminster election.

Turnout for the constituency rose by 1.6 per cent to 67.91 per cent.

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CANDIDATE VOTE           % CHANGE SINCE 2017

Paula Bradshaw (ALL)        6,786 (14.3%) -3.9%

Claire Hanna (SDLP)       27,079 (57.1%) +31.3%

Michael Henderson (UUP)      1,259 (2.7%) -0.8%

Emma Little-Pengelly (DUP)       11,678 (24.7%) -5.8%

Chris McHugh (Aontú)     550 (1.2%) +1.2%

Electorate: 69,984

Turnout: 47,527 (67.9%) +1.6%

Majority: 15.401