Edwin Poots: Unionists should ‘reach out’ to new communities

Mr Poots represents South Belfast in the Northern Ireland Assembly, a seat he has held since March 2022.

He has been a minister, party leader, and is now Stormont’s speaker. He is the only unionist MLA in the constituency.

“I look at the population that I represent in South Belfast. Martin Smyth held that seat for years at Westminster based on white working class Protestants coming out and voting for him,” he told the podcast.

“That part of our demographic has reduced significantly.”

In the 1980s, the Ulster Unionist Party’s Martin Smyth won the Westminster seat with a share of up to 71% of the vote.

The combined unionist vote in the constituency at the most recent general election was just under 22%.

“We have lots of people from other communities that have chosen to come and live here,” he said.

“A lot of those people want to be part of the United Kingdom. So, you know, we need to reach out to those people and to be working with those people who wish to be unionists, who don’t fit the traditional model of unionists.”