Much Ado About By-Elections, Part 1
Originally published in The National Guardian March 30th 2003 by Tabitha Rust.
In the small hours of Monday morning, over a pot of black tar and guac on toast, my incongruous friend Leon Scully called to inquire if The Guardian would be profiling the by-election that had just taken place in Calgary for the (Canadian) House of Commons.
The winner, predictably for elections taking place in Alberta, was won by a handsome and charismatic populist: Charlie Manning, 29 year old wunderkind of the Manning political dynasty, now representing his ancestral stripes for the ‘Macmillanite’ Liberals. Although I do not know Manning personally — indeed I passed on the email to a mutual friend on our North America desk, Piers Jones — his run, and rot victory, made me recall Britain’s own history of tumultuous by-elections.
Since the 1944 Labour victory that marked the end of the Second World War, there have been well over 500 by-elections to the House of Commons. In the current Parliament alone, there has been nearly 20, and although the results in Britain are far more placid than Calgary, it cannot be said that Britain doesn’t have its fair share of upending results. From Churchill’s defeat at Oldham to the Unionist’s assertion of their place in the post-National Alliance centre-right at Sowerby, these are seven by-elections that rocked Britain.
1. Belfast North: 3rd December 1959
Elections in Northern Ireland are often a fickle affair. While the Communities remain the same, loyalties within can easily shift and realign depending on the needs and anxieties of the Constituents, and the tenor of the candidate who exploits them. The Belfast North by-election is a prime example of this, and served as the first real shock of the post-war era.
Positioned west of the Lagan Estuary and containing the docklands and Newtownabbey, the historic boundaries of Belfast North was split nearly evenly between working class Catholics and Protestants. Held since its creation in 1922 by the Unionist Party, one of the many centre-right parties that existed prior to the National Alliance, from the 1958 General election to the by-election the seat was occupied by the thirty-year-old John Thorpe.
A barrister who had attended Eton and read law at Oxford, while lacking the Ulster brogue it was undeniable that Thorpe came from from Unionist stock. His father before him, John H., had uprooted the family to (successfully) contest North Down during the eventful general election of of 1925, holding his seat until his death in 1944.
John Thorpe, returning to the Province to inherent his father’s estate, would become entangled in local policies, distinguishing himself to the Unionist leadership for his electioneering prowess at the Fermanagh & Tyrone by-election (to the Ulster Parliament).
Despite this background, John Thorpe’s relationship with the Unionists was always somewhat frosty, particularly those from the more religious (Ulster) Unionists tradition. They endorsed him as their candidate to recapture Belfast North from the (Irish) Labour Party, but he did not thank them. A year after his victory in the long summer of ’59, Thorpe resigned the Unionist whip. He would shortly thereafter trigger a by-election when he crossed the floor to join the New Ulster Party.
The New Ulster Party, formed in 1955 as the New Ulster Movement, was an alliance of working class Catholic tenant associations’ and middle-class protestant reformist. Initially a pressure group, they backed pro-Civil Rights candidates from Labour, the Unionists, and the Ulster Liberal Association (the latter of whom the NUP would eventually merge into ahead of the 1961 General election), transitioning abruptly into a political party by their only Unionist coupon, Thorpe, who saw the group as a way of transitioning his political career, rather than ending it.
So following a few weeks of negotiations, the NUM become the NUP. With Thorpe crossing the floor to them, they became the only other party besides the Unionists with Westminster level representation. This level of responsibility was immense and cannot be understated, as no other Northern Irish MP in the Commons at that time was officially pro-Catholic rights. All, such as Opposition Spokesman for Home Affairs Frank Knox and even Thorpe himself, had been members of the Orange Order.
Thorpe’s floor crossing changed that. Some, such as the Chichester-Clark brothers, were quietly supportive of Thorpe, having nursed the smaller but still significant Catholic communities in their own Constituencies. Others, such as Frank Knox, openly called for someone to ‘do something’ about Thorpe, to rid him of the meddling parliamentarian and to do it fast.
With the writ dropped, the Unionists sprang into action. Within a few days, they found their candidate: Cllr Ian Paisley. Son of a Baptist Pastor who had followed his UVF father into politics, the firebrand Paisley contrasted Thorpe’s cross-community liberalism with a hard-right protestant ethos.
Taking a ‘fight and be right’ mindset, Paisley’s campaign was aggressive. The first Unionist leaflet declared Thorpe to be: “mere traitor for Papist Dublin and Rome”, while the following exclaimed: “fornicated with Irish sodomites plotting to sell us to the Fianna Fáscists in the Dail[sic]”. At least one of those charges was true, although at the time dismissed due to intensity of pitch.
Thorpe was oddly delighted to fight against Paisley. To him it was the chance to prove that Northern Ireland was not merely a land of extremes, but one in which cross-community secularism could thrive. And Thorpe would be the face of that new Northern Ireland.
Thorpe’s assassination in September 1959 ended this hope.
Gunned down by an unknown (but likely Orangeman) gunman while campaigning on the heavily Catholic Falls Road, the images of Thorpe’s murder, his body, laying crumpled on a pile of his own campaign literature, flashed across the world. The American Government issued a condemnation. The French consulate sent condolences to the Thorpe family. The Irish Government declared a moment of silence in the Dáil. Very suddenly, a whole lot of people cared a whole lot about Northern Ireland.
The poll was pushed back from October 9th to December 3rd. In Thorpe’s stead the NUP selected Oliver Napier, a young solicitor in-training and one of the party’s leading activists. Paisley was reselected, but this all but ensured the Unionists would lose, unhelped by Paisley declaring that the mayrted Thorpe was: “likely burning” at a party rally at the docklands.
Even among those who despised Thorpe, this kind of rhetoric was too much. Basil Brooke, then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, summed up the mood of the Unionist camp by stating that he would: “personally cross the Lagan and throttle [Paisley]”. Although like many it was not that Brooke necessarily disagreed with Paisley, but simply that they were mortified to hear the quiet part said out loud.
Although he failed to improve on Thorpe’s previous performance, Napier nonetheless won the seat by a large margin, securing a majority of 12.8%. Paisley achieved less than a third of the vote and walked out of the count immedielty before the declaration. His career in political would continue in Antrim, the electorate of which was much more receptive to his outspoken style.
Two candidates fought alongside Napier and Paisley. The first was Dr Richard Brooker, a paediatrician who ran for the seat under the Labour banner. Brooker’s presence in the election was minimal, overshadowed by Thorpe and Paisley’s heated contest, and following Thorpe’s murder, had little hope of making much of an impact. Nonetheless, Brooker won 18.4% of the vote, returning the NI Labour’s deposit, but ending them as a political force in Belfast as they lost over half their vote.
Archibald Huxley, an accountant, ran as an Independent Unionist. Following Paisley’s gaffe his campaign was given a major boost, and although he failed to retain his deposit, he was largely cited by Paisley as the real reason he lost (despite it being mathematically impossible for him to have won even with Huxley’s vote). The following election saw Huxley run as the official Unionist candidate, beating Napier in a straight two-way contest.
Napier would become a prominent figure in Northern Irish politics, elected to Stormont for the NUP and serving as Leader of the principle Opposition until his own murder during The Emergency.
21,414 (42.8%) Oliver Napier — New Ulster Party
15,010 (30.0%) Ian Paisley — Ulster Unionist
9,206 (18.4%) Richard Brooker — NI Labour
4,403 (8.8%) Archibald Huxley — Independent Unionist
Maj. 6,404 (12.8%)
