The Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) is a modest political group in Northern Ireland that is both unionist and loyalist.
After breaking from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) over its endorsement of power-sharing with Sinn Féil in December 2007, the party was created.
Jim Allister, the party’s founder and leader, served in the European Parliament as an independent until 2009, after being voted for the DUP in 2004.
William Ross is the party’s chairman. The TUV is a conservative, right-wing party. It rejects the Good Friday Agreement, particularly the requirement of mandatory power-sharing with Irish nationalists &political cooperation with the Republic of Ireland.
Ideology of the Traditional Unionist Voice
The Traditional Unionist Voice is seen as tougher than the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), from which it broke, which it accuses of over-compromise with Irish republicans and moral weakness.
The TUV is a loyalist and unionist right-wing party. It rejects the Good Friday Agreement, believing that coalition governments should be voluntary and that unionists (traditionally the largest group) should not have to share power with Irish nationalists.
It opposes former IRA members &Sinn Féin members being in government in Northern Ireland; the TUV considers the majority of its leadership to be terrorists.
Both parties received amnesties through the Good Friday Agreement, however the TUV rejects amnesties for Irish republicans.
It also seeks to use North-South organisations to minimise political cooperation with the Republic of Ireland.
The TUV stands for social conservatism as well as national conservatism.
Jim Allister voted against a motion to grant pardons to gay males convicted of previously prohibited homosexual conduct.
During the Brexit discussion, it also took a hard Euroskeptic posture.
Election History of the Traditional Unionist Voice
The Dromore local government by-election for Banbridge District Council was held on 13 February 2008, with Keith Harbinson, a Dromore solicitor, as the party’s first candidate. He received 19.5 percent of the first-choice votes.
TUV was the last party to be defeated, and its votes went to the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) rather than the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), allowing the former to keep its seat.
On 14 January 2010, the TUV received 19.3% of first preference votes in a Craigavon Borough Council local by-election in Lurgan.
Jo-Anne Dobson, the UUP candidate, received 63.9 percent of the vote. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) did not run for the seat.
European Parliament Election
On the 4th of June 2009, Jim Allister, the TUV’s leader, ran for European Parliament. He ran on a platform opposing the Northern Ireland Executive, which is governed by the DUP and Sinn Féin.
The unionist vote was split three ways in this election, making it a highly contested one. Bairbre de Brn, a Sinn Féin MEP, came out on top in the vote (a first for any Irish nationalist candidate).
Jim Nicholson of the Ulster Conservative &Unionist Party came in second, while Diane Dodds of the DUP came in third, defeating Allister. TUV received 66,000 votes.
Allister hailed the results as a “success for unionism,”and stated that TUV candidates would run in future Northern Ireland Assembly &parliamentary elections.
He also said that the election reflected “the depth of sentiment among many unionists who reject to be rolled over in the age of the Sinn Féin government, who have quite justifiably a resentment against those who betrayed, deceived, and fooled them in the assembly election.”
General election in Westminster in 2010
The TUV received 26,300 votes across Northern Ireland in the 2010 general election for the Westminster parliament on May 6, a significant reduction from the previous year’s European elections.
The DUP received 168,216 votes, while the UCUNF obtained 102,361 votes in the same election. The TUV did not win any of the ten seats it ran for.
The TUV admitted on their website a week after the election that the results were “disappointing.”
Elections to the city council in 2011
In the 2011 Northern Ireland local elections, Traditional Unionist Voiceran 41 candidates. It garnered 2% of the vote in the total poll. In Ballymena, two TUV candidates were elected, with one each in Moyle, Ballymoney, Larne, and Limavady.
The Election to the Northern Ireland Assembly
In the 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election, the party ran 12 candidates. TUV received 16,480 votes, or 2.5 percent of the vote, a decrease from the vote totals in the 2010 election.
However, in the North Antrim seat, eleven candidates were unsuccessful. Jim Allister collected 4,061 first-preference votes (10.1 percent) and was declared elected without meeting the requirement of 5,760 votes on the ninth and final count.
The European Parliament Election in 2014
Allister ran for the Northern Ireland constituency in the 2014 European Parliament election. He received 75,806 first preference votes, or 12.1 percent of the total, in this election.
This resulted in a rise in the number of votes cast, but a drop in the vote share of little over one percentage point. Allister was defeated in his bid for re-election, with Sinn Féin, the DUP, and the UUP all keeping their seats. In the sixth of eight counts, Allister was eliminated.
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The Great Elections to the City Council in 2014
TUV candidates received 28,310 first preference votes, or 4.5 percent, in the 2014 Northern Ireland local elections (taken on the same day as the European elections) for the eleven new local councils in Northern Ireland, an increase over prior council elections.
There were 13 successful candidates for the party. They gained the most councillors in Mid &East Antrim, where they rose to third place with five seats.
They were elected to three seats in Causeway Coast &Glens, two seats in Antrim and Newtownabbey, and one seat each in Belfast, North Down and Ards, and Lisburn and Castlereagh.
