In search of Northern Ireland’s Tories Interest from the Conservatives is purely superficial

Still, I was interested in these eccentric Tories, so far from the shires. What sort of person would stand for the Conservatives in Northern Ireland? It goes so against the grain that it’s almost punk. Such people would have to be tough, to have a certain dash about them. I had hoped to speak to the candidates about the campaign, but received no response to my requests for an interview. The party political broadcast was no help, just a turgid breakdown of Labour’s manifesto costings. There wasn’t much information online, either: a slim website, a small Facebook group, and an X account that has been suspended for weeks now. So I went to Newtownards, 10 miles east of Belfast, to talk to voters like William. If I couldn’t get a birds-eye view of the Tory campaign in Northern Ireland, I’d explore the ground instead.

Newtownards should have been a good place to begin my hunt. It’s the largest town in the Strangford constituency and has a strong unionist base. The Tory candidate is Barry Hetherington, a Fermanagh man who is the Deputy Chair of the NI Conservatives. There’s little chance of winning more than a handful of votes here. But then there’s little chance of winning more than a handful of votes anywhere in Northern Ireland. Having taken the trouble to stand, you might as well campaign. And yet there’s nothing. 

Other parties — DUP, TUV, Alliance — have diligently festooned the lampposts with posters. The Conservatives haven’t bothered. It doesn’t look as if their canvassing game is up to much either. With the election in less than three weeks, the people of Newtownards seem unaware that a Tory is running at all. I ask Kathleen, 60s, if she knows that voting Conservative is an option. “No, I didn’t realise that. We’re usually pretty well-informed. And we’re getting close now, aren’t we? We got our [poll] cards through the post yesterday.”

The most common reaction to my questions is weary amusement. Everyone’s face does the same thing. Lips tighten, noses wrinkle, eyes shine. When I ask Hazel, a woman in her 40s, whether she’s aware that the Tories are running here, she smiles broadly. “I’m sure they are,” she says, hoisting an eyebrow. “But I’m not really interested in the Tories.” I wander down the street to Déjà Vu Hair, where I meet Leah, 18. Hetherington’s candidature is news to her, too. Would she vote Conservative? “No.”

A few days later, I hopped on to a bus to Downpatrick. Strangford had been a bust, but perhaps I’d have more luck in the adjoining constituency of South Down. This is a beautiful country. Drumlins rise and fall, boreens ferret away between tightly packed fields, and the Mourne Mountains are stamped indigo on the horizon. I might have gone to Newcastle, a fine town on the Irish Sea, or to Rostrevor on Carlingford Lough. But I chose Downpatrick, with its Georgian houses and hilly streets, for its relative size and status as the county town. 

South Down has been a Sinn Féin constituency since 2017, and a reliable nationalist win for decades before that. The Conservative running here is Hannah Westropp, whose rather coy candidate bio leaves it unclear whether she lives in Northern Ireland or has been Izzarded in from England. 

Downpatrick is a smaller, quieter place than Newtownards. The lampposts advertise Sinn Féin and Alliance. Most of the people I approach, quite sensibly, don’t want to talk about the election. The response of one friendly old gent at a bus stop on St Patrick’s Avenue was typical: “Sorry, mate. I’ve no interest in it. Fed up. No interest at all.” Eventually, I strike lucky. A woman on Market Street knows that a Tory is contesting South Down. I’m intrigued. Had she seen a poster, got a leaflet through the letterbox? “No, it was on Radio Ulster, they went through all the candidates.” This was the only person aware of a local Tory campaign. Otherwise, the situation in South Down was no different to Strangford: a ghost hunt. 

On the bus back to Belfast, rain spotting the windows, I admitted defeat. Granted, the Tories are standing in three other constituencies — East Londonderry, West Tyrone, and Newry and Armagh. Maybe Coleraine is a hotbed of Tory activism. Perhaps if I’d gone out to Tyrone I might have witnessed an electrifying rally on the streets of Strabane, blue rosettes winking in the sun. For all I know, the people of Newry can barely walk down Merchants Quay without being harangued by a Conservative canvasser. Somehow, though, I doubt it. 

The NI Conservatives march on paper alone. It’s a bizarre situation, and easy to make light of. But there’s a bleaker side to all this, too. Northern Ireland is creaking at the seams. Recent recommended cuts to the NHS were so extreme that the Health Minister has simply refused to make them. Infrastructure is failing, homelessness is rising, and Lough Neagh, once the UK’s largest freshwater lake, is now the world’s largest petri dish. In such times, a party that treats Northern Ireland as a political Wendy house ceases to be funny. 

If the NI Conservatives are good for anything, it’s as a warning to their own colleagues across the water. Friendless, decisively outnumbered, shuffling unremarked from election to election, Northern Ireland’s Tories may well offer a glimpse of the party’s future throughout the United Kingdom. Where they will go from there is anyone’s guess. William said it best, that day in front of Newtownards Town Hall. I don’t think they know themselves.