DUP celebrates election hat-trick

Party members and supporters crowded into the reception area of the Church Road leisure centre to cheer their victorious candidates as all three Newtownabbey constituencies - South Antrim, East Antrim and North Belfast - returned DUP Members of Parliament.

Turnout was down in all three constituencies, but the defending MPs all managed to secure re-election.

It was a clear-cut result in East Antrim with Sammy Wilson holding his seat with a massive majority, but, as predicted, it was nip and tuck in the other two areas.

In South Antrim William McCrea managed to hold off the challenge of UUP leader Sir Reg Empey as the wave of support for the TUV’s Mel Lucas that many had anticipated failed to materialise.

After some checking and re-checking to make sure all the figures added up, it was Nigel Dodds who took victory in North Belfast ahead of Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly.

If their party leader’s defeat in East Belfast at the hands of Alliance’s Naomi Long should have taken a bit of the gloss off the night for them, it didn’t show as the three candidates and their supporters jubilantly celebrated a DUP 1,2,3.