The moderate unionist and anti-Brexit Alliance Party polled very strongly across the north, with the party returning to Westminster in the form of their deputy leader Stephen Farry. He secured a huge increase in the party’s vote share in north Down, claiming all of the vote of the former MP independent unionist Sylvia Hermon, who had announced her retirement.

Despite another big increase in the Alliance vote in east Belfast, it narrowly failed to take the seat there from the DUP’s Gavin Robinson.

Mayor of Belfast and Sinn Féin candidate John Finucane has taken the north Belfast Westminster seat from the DUP’s Nigel Dodds in a stunning victory for the republican party and a historic election for nationalism in the north of Ireland.

The DUP has also lost a second seat in south Belfast, losing heavily to the SDLP in what has become a disastrous election for the hardline unionist party. It also failed to make a widely expected gain in North Down, falling well short of the Alliance Party.

Speaking after the shock result was declared in the ‘cockpit’ constituency of north Belfast, John Finucane said his election by almost two thousand votes was a “surreal experience”.

He recalled his father, who was murdered by a British-directed death squad in 1989, and said he wanted to pay particular tribute to his family and to his mother, who accompanied him to the count centre.

“I can’t help but think of my father and think of where we have come from, not just as a family, but as a society,” he said. He recognised his election had been due to a “positive campaign” that “transcended party politics”, and vowed to “work for every single person in this constituency”.