Local elections 2022: Labour holds Sunderland as first councils declare in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – live updates
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While we wait for election results, here’s a brief recap of the situation in Northern Ireland, where the day’s most significant elections – for the devolved government in Stormont – are taking place although results will not begin to come in until later on Friday.
Sinn Féin are predicted to become the largest party in Stormont – meaning a republican party would claim the post of first minister for the first time since the power-sharing deal set out in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
A victory would not change the balance of power – the office of first minister and deputy are equal – and Sinn Féin is unlikely to gain a majority but it would be an important symbolical win for a party that was once regarded as the political arm of the IRA.
One of the most recent polls put Sinn Féin on 26%, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) on 20% and the centrist Alliance on 14% with smaller nationalist and unionist parties accounting for most of the rest.
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has refused to say whether he will nominate a deputy first minister in the event of Sinn Féin claiming the top office.
He has also said his party will not enter a new Stormont executive unless the government in Westminster takes action on the Brexit protocol that saw checks introduced on goods crossing the Irish Sea, effectively introducing a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
DUP first minister Paul Givan resigned over the issue in February, plunging the devolved government into renewed turmoil – the power-sharing arrangement with Sinn Féin had been restored just two years earlier.
Most voters in Northern Ireland favour remaining in the UK and Sinn Féin leader Michelle O’Neill has been careful not to push the matter of Irish reunification during the election campaign, instead focusing on issues such as the rising cost of living and health care.
An immediate referendum on reunification is therefore unlikely – but the party will certainly hope that a victory will give it momentum towards that eventual goal.
Due to the voting system Northern Ireland uses – the single transferable vote (STV) proportional representation electoral system – and the fact that counting does not begin until Friday morning results are not immediately expected.
For more in depth insight into the election in Northern Ireland, check out this dispatch written by the Guardian’s correspondent Rory Carroll earlier this week:
Related: Sinn Féin echoes Labour in 1997 with softly-softly Stormont campaign