Northern Ireland’s 2022 Assembly Election Results Made Simple

Northern Ireland had its last Assembly Election on 5th May 2022, which resulted in a massive change regarding how large parties are. Not only did it result in Northern Ireland getting its first Republican First Minister, but we’re also now hearing a lot more about there being a supposed change towards Northern Ireland’s future inside the UK — though to make it clear, a lot of people would argue that there isn’t enough evidence for this beyond the 2022 election results.

In this blog, I’m going to summarise the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly Election results in a way that is simple to understand.

So for those of you who don’t follow much of Northern Ireland’s political news, there was an Assembly Election held on the 5th of May 2022. Following the election, Sinn Féin became Northern Ireland’s largest political party — as the polls suggested — but without gaining any more seats than they had before, so it wasn’t as big of a serge as some were predicting it would have been. The DUP went from having 28 seats to 25 (-3) and Alliance gained 17 seats (+9).

So in other words, despite how much they hate each other, Sinn Féin and the DUP are still interested in carrying on their love/hate marriage, and despite how eager Alliance are to climb into bed with the Shinners, the DUP isn’t happy to let them take the Shinners away.

Turning now to the former star couple, the UUP secured only 9 seats and the SDLP secured only 8, so alas, they’ll have to wait another few years before attempting to get back together again. But at least one of them can face the other and say “We may be unpopular, but we’re not as unpopular as you.”

However, there were 4 seats gained by other parties as well (who we’re going to refer to in this blog as the dodgy neighbours who spy on the other couples), with the Independents securing 2 seats, the TUV winning 1 and People Before Profit winning 1.

And so, while there may be a bit of credence to the argument that support for a United Ireland may have increased, others (no matter what they believe) may point out that it’s important to remember that these election results effectively only split the Unionist vote across three parties, instead of completely decreasing Unionist views.