Traditional Unionist Voice

Traditional Unionist Voice
Leader	Jim Allister MLA QC
Chairman	Ivor McConnell
President	William Ross
Founded	1 December 2007
Headquarters	139 Holywood Road, Belfast BT4 3BE, Northern Ireland
Ideology	British unionism British nationalism National conservatism Social conservatism Euroscepticism
Political position	Right-wing
International affiliation	None
European affiliation	None
European Parliament Group	None
Official colours	Red, white and blue
Northern Ireland Assembly	1 / 108
Local government in Northern Ireland	6 / 582
Website
http://www.tuv.org.uk/
Politics of United Kingdom Political parties Elections

Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland founded on 7 December 2007, as an anti-St Andrews Agreement splinter group from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Its first and current leader is Jim Allister who, until 2009, sat as an independent Member of the European Parliament, having been elected for the DUP in 2004. In the 2009 European elections Allister lost his seat when he stood as a TUV candidate. In June 2008, it was announced that former UUP MP William Ross had been made party president.

The founding principles of the TUV were:

• retention of the Union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain
• commitment to a form of devolution that rejects mandatory coalition
• that the rule of law must prevail in every part of Northern Ireland and be administered without fear or favour
• support for socially conservative values

Local by-elections

The party's first electoral contest was the Dromore local government by-election for Banbridge District Council which took place on 13 February 2008 with its candidate being Dromore solicitor, Keith Harbinson. He took 19.5% of the 1st preference votes cast.

TUV was the last party to be eliminated, and more of its votes transferred to the UUP than to the DUP, enabling the former to retain its seat.

At a Craigavon Borough Council local by-election in Lurgan on 14 January 2010, the TUV won 19.3% of first preference votes. The UUP candidate won with 63.9%. The DUP did not contest the seat.

2011 Assembly election

The party fielded 12 candidates for the 2011 Assembly election. TUV received 16,480 votes or 2.5% of the poll, which was a drop in the number of votes received in the 2010 election. Eleven candidates were unsuccessful but in the North Antrim constituency Jim Allister received 4,061 first preference votes (10.1%), and on the ninth and last count was deemed to be elected without reaching the quota of 5,760 votes.

2011 Council Election

Traditional Unionist Voice fielded 41 candidates in the 2011 Council elections. It received 2% of the overall vote. Two TUV candidates were elected in Ballymena, and one each in Moyle, Ballymoney, Larne and Limavady.

2010 Westminster general election

On 6 May at the 2010 general election for the Westminster parliament, the TUV received 26,300 votes across Northern Ireland, a large drop in what it had received in the European Elections. In the same election, the DUP received 168,216 votes and the UCU-NF received 102,361 votes. The TUV failed to win any of the 18 Northern Ireland seats. A week after the election, the TUV acknowledged on their website that the results had been 'disappointing'.

European Parliament election 2009

Jim Allister, Leader of the TUV, contested the European Parliament election on 4 June 2009. He stood on a ticket of opposition to the DUP/SF-led power-sharing government in Belfast. The election turned out to be hotly contested, with the unionist vote split three ways. Sinn Féin's sitting MEP Bairbre de Brún topped the poll (a first for any nationalist or republican candidate). The Ulster Conservative and Unionist candidate Jim Nicholson took the second seat, with Diane Dodds of the DUP coming in third place, defeating Allister. The TUV polled 66,000 votes. Allister called the results a victory for unionism and indicated his intention to stand TUV candidates in future Northern Ireland Assembly and parliamentary elections. Allister commented, "It shows the depth of feeling that there is among many unionists who refuse to be rolled over in the era of Sinn Féin rule, who have quite rightly a resentment against those who betrayed them, deceived them, conned them, in the assembly election."

Results

Party		Candidate	Seats	Loss/Gain	First Preference Votes		Seat
					Number	% of vote
	Sinn Féin	Bairbre de Brún	1	0	126,184	25.8	1st
	Democratic Unionist	Diane Dodds	1	0	88,346	18.1	3rd
	Conservatives and Unionists	Jim Nicholson	1	0	82,892	17.0	2nd
	SDLP	Alban Maginness	0	0	78,489	16.1
	Traditional Unionist Voice	Jim Allister	0	0	66,197	13.5
	Alliance	Ian Parsley	0	0	26,699	5.5
	Green (NI)	Steven Agnew	0	0	15,764	3.2
Turnout					488,891	42.8

Source: RTÉ News

Controversy

On 4 November 2009, the party caused controversy when it referred to the Irish language as a "leprechaun language" on its web site. The statement was issued under the name of TUV vice-chairman Keith Harbinson and condemned the Department of Education for "wasting" money on Irish. The party later removed the phrase, but the original page had already been spread on numerous other websites.

In December 2009, TUV member Trevor Collins launched a petition to release Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) member Torrens Knight from prison. Knight had been imprisoned for taking part in the Greysteel massacre and Castlerock killings in 1993. He was released under the terms of the Belfast Agreement (1998), but in 2009 was sent back to prison for beating two women in a bar. Party leader Jim Allister refused to take action against Collins.

Following the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid TUV member David Vance sparked outrage regarding comments posted on Twitter social networking site. It was later reported in 2010 that Mr Vance's website faced closure over numerous instances of ‘hate speech’ in violation of Terms of Service. The site had to change its hosting arrangements but remained open in May 2011, in which month Vance was one of the unsuccessful TUV Assembly election candidates.

External links

• TUV website