45.7%: How Northern Ireland lost its Unionist majority, and Sinn Féin regained their mojo

They were the elections you didn’t hear about, because the UK press mainly instead covered Bruce Forsyth’s chest infection.  But Northern Ireland just woke up to a world where the Unionists’ vote share is a princely 45.7%. 

It was the highest turnout since 1998 (64.8%), the year of the Good Friday Agreement, that buoyed Sinn Féin to within a pip of the DUP–the latter on 28 seats and 28.1% of first-preference votes, the former on 27 and 27.9%.

So the two unionist parties, the DUP and UUP, jointly now have 38 seats in a 90-seat assembly.  While Sinn Féin and the SDLP (after a surprisingly very good election day) have 39.

It doesn’t change the maths–the DUP and Sinn Féin still are the largest unionist and nationalist parties, and will still nominate (or more likely, won’t) a First Minister and deputy First Minister in the next three weeks to form a new joint executive.