Gerry_Carroll

Gerry Carroll

Gerry Carroll

Northern Irish politician (born 1987)


Gerry Carroll (born 27 April 1987) is a People Before Profit politician and Socialist activist from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who has been a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Belfast West since 2016. Caroll also served as a Belfast City Councillor for the Black Mountain DEA from 2014 until 2016.

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Career

When aged 16, Carroll fund-raised with fellow activists to travel to Edinburgh, Scotland for the Make Poverty History protest. He contested the 2011 Belfast West by-election—triggered by the resignation of Gerry Adams—for the People Before Profit, and won 7.6% of the vote. At the 2014 Belfast City Council election he gained one of the seven seats in the Black Mountain electoral area from Sinn Féin, coming third. Following his election, he said that he did not describe himself as a nationalist or a unionist, instead choosing to identify as a socialist. He said: "There is a lot of anger in West Belfast at the minute over the situation at Royal Victoria Hospital's A&E, the privatisation of leisure centres and the Casement Park issues...residents have been trampled on".[1] He contested Belfast West again at the 2015 general election,[2] this time coming second, gaining 19.2% of the vote and reducing the Sinn Féin majority from 57.1% to 35.0%.[3]

After being elected a councillor, Carroll criticised the large pay rises that were given to councillors whilst other council staff suffered effective pay cuts, and campaigned against privatisation and cuts.[4]

He criticised Sinn Féin's "support for capitalism", and spoke against the "sectarian nature" of politics in Northern Ireland. In August 2014 he said: "In Northern Ireland sectarianism is at the heart of the state. I don't accept that, but then again I don't accept the conservative right-wing state in the south". At the 2016 Assembly election he was elected an MLA for Belfast West, topping the poll on the first count and gaining a seat from Rosie McCorley of Sinn Féin.[5] He was re-elected at the 2017 election; however, his vote fell from 22.9% to 12.2% in the face of a 4% overall Sinn Féin vote increase that cost fellow People Before Profit MLA Eamonn McCann and the SDLP's Alex Attwood their re-election bids.[6]

Carroll's support for Brexit, in an area in which three-quarters of voters voted Remain, has attracted criticism from Sinn Féin and pro-EU activists.[7][8]

Carroll stood in the 2019 general election and came in second place behind incumbent Sinn Féin MP Paul Maskey.

Electoral history

2019 UK general election

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2017 UK general election

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2017 Northern Ireland Assembly election

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    2016 Northern Ireland Assembly election

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      2015 UK general election

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      2014 Belfast City Council election

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        2011 UK by-election

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        2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election

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          References

          1. Black, Rebecca (24 May 2014). "I am not a nationalist or a unionist, I am a socialist, says People Before Profit's new Belfast councillor Gerry Carroll". The Belfast Telegraph. Archived from the original on 6 October 2015. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
          2. Ó Muilleoir, Tiarnán (6 March 2015). "Carroll vows to take on 'austerity parties'". Belfast Media Group. Archived from the original on 6 October 2015. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
          3. "Belfast West parliamentary constituency – Election 2015". BBC News. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
          4. Stewart, Alan (27 June 2015). "Politician expresses fears over Waterfront Hall 'privatisation'". Belfast Live. Archived from the original on 4 October 2015. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
          5. Little, Ivan. "West Belfast: Fairy tale win for newcomer Carroll as he snatches seat from Sinn Féin". Belfasttelegraph. Archived from the original on 10 June 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
          6. "Carroll and McCann align themselves to Tory right wingers – Maskey | Sinn Féin". Sinnfein.ie. 18 October 2016. Archived from the original on 6 March 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
          7. "People Before Profit's justification for Brexit is just nonsense". The Irish News. Archived from the original on 3 November 2016. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
          8. "Belfast West Parliamentary constituency". BBC News. BBC. Archived from the original on 30 November 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
          9. "Election of a Member of Parliament for the BELFAST WEST Constituency - Statement of Persons Nominated and Notice of Poll". Electoral Office of Northern Ireland. 11 May 2017. Archived from the original on 19 October 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
          10. "UK Parliamentary Election Result 2017 - Belfast West". Archived from the original on 13 June 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
          11. "Statement of Persons Nominated". EONI. Archived from the original on 11 February 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
          12. "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
          13. "The Electoral Office of Northern Ireland - EONI". www.eoni.org.uk. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
          14. "Member of Parliament for Belfast West". YourNextMP. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
          15. "UK ELECTION RESULTS: BELFAST WEST 2015". Archived from the original on 14 June 2018. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
          16. Northern Ireland Elections Archived 4 April 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Northern Ireland Elections, 6 May 2018
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