Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention

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Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention
All 78 seats to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention
1 May 1975
		First party	Second party	Third party
Leader		Harry West	Gerry Fitt	Ian Paisley
Party		Ulster Unionist	Social Democratic and Labour	Democratic Unionist
Leader since		22 January 1974	21 August 1970	30 September 1971
Leader's seat		Fermanagh and South Tyrone	Belfast North	North Antrim
Last election		31 seats (35.8%)	19 seats (22.1%)	8 seats (10.8%)
Seats won		19	17	12
Seat change		-12	-2	+4
Popular vote		167,214	156,049	97,073
Percentage		25.4%	23.7%	14.8%
		Fourth party	Fifth party	Sixth party
Leader		William Craig	Oliver Napier	Brian Faulkner
Party		Vanguard	Alliance	Unionist Party NI
Leader since		9 February 1972	1972	4 September 1974
Leader's seat		Belfast East	Belfast East	South Down
Last election		7 seats (11.5%)	8 seats (9.2%)	N/A
Seats won		14	8	5
Seat change		+7	0	N/A
Popular vote		83,507	64,657	50,891
Percentage		12.7%	9.8%	7.7%
Incumbent Chief Executive Brian Faulkner Chief Executive-elect None

Northern Ireland 1973-1998
This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Northern Ireland
Interim bodies
Northern Ireland Assembly (1973) Northern Ireland Executive (1974) Constitutional Convention (1975) Northern Ireland Assembly (1982) Northern Ireland Forum (1996)
Elections
1973  · 1975  · 1982  · 1996
Members
1973  · 1975  · 1982  · 1996
See also
Anglo-Irish Agreement New Ireland Forum Northern Ireland by-elections, 1986 Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum, 1973
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The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention (NICC) was an elected body set up in 1975 by the UK Labour government of Harold Wilson as an attempt to deal with constitutional issues surrounding the status of Northern Ireland.

Formation of the Constitutional Convention

The idea for an NICC was first mooted by the Northern Ireland Office when it produced a white paper entitled The Northern Ireland Constitution.^[1] on the 4th July 1974. The document laid out plans to hold elections to a body which would seek to agree a political settlement for Northern Ireland. The proposals became law with the enacted of the Northern Ireland Act 1974 later that month. With Lord Chief Justice Robert Lowry appointed to chair the new body, elections were announced for the 1 May 1975.

The elections were held for the 78 member assembly using the Single Transferable Vote system of proportional representation in each of Northern Ireland's twelve UK constituencies. Initially the body was intended to be purely consultative, although it was hoped that executive and legislative functions could be devolved to the NICC as agreements were made.

Results

Unionists opposed to the NICC once again banded together under the umbrella of the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) and this coalition proved the most successful, taking 46 seats.

Source: Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention Elections 1975

Votes summary

Seats summary

Leading Members

A number of leading Northern Ireland politicians were elected to the NICC, increasing hope that the body might achieve some of its aims. Also elected were a number of younger figures who would go on to become leading figures in the future of Northern Ireland politics. These included:

Progress of the NICC

The elections left the body fundamentally weakened from its inception as an overall majority had been obtained by those Unionists who opposed power sharing as a concept. As a result the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention Report published on 20th November 1975 ^[2] recommended only a return to majority rule as had previously existed under the old Parliament of Northern Ireland government. As such a solution was completely unacceptable to the nationalist parties, the NICC was placed on hiatus.

Hoping to gain something from the exercise, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees announced that the NICC would be reconvened on 3 February 1976. However a series of meetings held between the UUUC and the SDLP failed to reach any agreement about SDLP participation in government and so the reconvened NICC once again produced the same results. As a result Rees announced the dissolution of the body on 4 March 1976 and Northern Ireland was returned to direct rule. The NICC had, overall, been a failure as it failed to lessen the impasse in Northern Ireland and so led to no changes being enacted.

Significance of the NICC

On the face of it, the NICC was a total failure as it did not achieve its aims of agreement between the two sides or of introducing 'rolling devolution' (gradual introduction of devolution as and when the parties involved saw fit to accept it). Nevertheless, coming as it did not long after the Conservative-sponsored Sunningdale Agreement, the NICC indicated that no British government would be prepared to re-introduce majority rule in Northern Ireland. During the debates William Craig accepted the possibility of power-sharing with the SDLP, a move that split the UUUC and precipitated the eventual collapse of Vanguard.

The idea of electing a consultative body to thrash out a deal for devolution was also retained and in 1996 it was revived when the Northern Ireland Forum was elected on largely the same lines and with the same overall purpose. Given that the Forum led to the Belfast Agreement and the Northern Ireland Assembly, the importance of the NICC as a model for this second body is clear.

References

External links

• A full discussion of the election results