We’re wrapping up updates above the line - but comments below will remain open. Thanks for all your contributions today, and have a good weekend.
We have a handy interactive outlining the latest results in the Northern Ireland assembly election.
A senior Sinn Fein activist predicts that the party will see all of its four candidates elected in west Belfast. He said the party’s effort in vote management in the constituency “matched the mood” of people opposed to the DUP.
One of their newer candidates Orlaithi Flynn will topping the Sinn Fein vote, he said. The fifth and final seat is still likely to go to left wing People Before Profit candidate Gerry Carroll. This is significant because it means the Social Democratic and Labour Party will have no representation at assembly level in west Belfast for the first time in its history.
The education secretary, Justine Greening, has scrapped plans to allow councils to opt out of child protection laws.
Peter Walker has the story.
Govt had been under lots of pressure over this, including from Lord Laming - who led the inquiry into death of Victoria Climbié
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) March 3, 2017
Updated
Northern Ireland assembly election turnout is 64.78%
It has transpired that the overall vote in this week’s assembly election is 64.78% - that is the highest turnout at a Northern Ireland vote since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Updated
Democratic Unionist MP for North Belfast Nigel Dodds was very upbeat inside the Belfast count centre in the Titanic Quarter of the city this morning.
Dodds said the DUP is “holding up well” despite dire predictions that the party would suffer big losses due to the renewable energy initiative, or “cash for ash scandal”.
While Dodds would not commit on saying whether or not the DUP will emerge as still the largest party, rivals in the Ulster Unionist Party, including one former Stormont minister, told me that they expect the Democratic Unionists will emerge as the largest party.
If the UUP activists are right then that would mean the return of the embattled outgoing First Minister Arlene Foster to the post.
The DUP had 38 seats in the last regional party but are expected to take some hits in this contest. But if they can stay ahead of Sinn Fein, Foster and company will still claim this as a moral victory.
Updated
Theresa May gave a speech at the Scottish Conservative conference this morning.
Our Scotland editor Severin Carrell was there, and has written up the story.
It begins:
Theresa May has signalled a far tougher line on Scottish demands for greater devolution after Brexit, laying down a clear challenge to Nicola Sturgeon to call another independence vote.
The prime minister told the Scottish Conservative party she would fight against any further decentralisation of power which meant the UK became “a looser and weaker union”. “We cannot allow our United Kingdom to drift apart,” she said.
Early tallies from eight counting centres across Northern Ireland this morning suggest that from North Down & Strangford in the east to Fermanagh in the west voting turnout has been higher compared to last May’s Assembly elections. These figures in the previous post show how voting in local elections from 2007 were falling but in this contest it appears more people are going back to the ballot box.
All eyes are on the second Northern Ireland assembly elections. We won’t get any results until midday, but our Ireland correspondent Henry McDonald has been looking at the turnout data: “if it’s 60% this time around, there will be a major jump in turnout in a decade.”
For comparison, here’s the turnout in recent Northern Ireland elections:
- EU Referendum 2016: 63%
- Assembly Election 2016: 55%
- General Election 2015: 58%
- Assembly Election 2011: 56%
- General Election 2010: 58%
- Assembly Election 2007: 62%
Updated
It’s been an interesting week for Ukip, with former leader Nigel Farage and the party’s sole parliamentary MP Douglas Carswell continuing their war of words and current leader Paul Nuttall recovering from his controversy-tinged campaign to become MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central.
We asked readers who have voted Ukip in the past - including one who voted Remain in last year’s EU referendum - where they think the party goes from here.
I’m not writing my usual blog this week because I’m off for half term but here, as an alternative, is the Politics Live readers’ edition. It is a place for you to discuss today’s politics, and to share links to breaking news and to the most interesting stories and blogs on the web.
Feel free to express your views robustly, but please treat others with respect and don’t resort to abuse. Guardian comment pages are supposed to be a haven from the Twitter/social media rant-orama, not an extension of it.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
And here are some of the main ones on our site this morning.
- Conservative promises to protect spending on police, sixth form education and childcare are at risk as Philip Hammond demands £3.5bn in new cuts from his cabinet colleagues, according to an analysis by the IPPR thinktank.
- Labour has lost nearly 26,000 members since last summer, according to leaked data.
- Theresa May has accused Nicola Sturgeon’s government of having “tunnel vision” over independence but refused to offer Scotland any specific new powers following Brexit.
- Northern Ireland’s Electoral Office has said that the turnout in Thursday’s assembly election was higher than in last May’s contest when 55% of voters took part.
- The Electoral Commission has been urged to investigate whether Nigel Farage’s Brexit campaign broke election law by not declaring the role of a firm of “psychographic” social media strategists used by Donald Trump.
On Thursday nights local council byelections take place. There were four last night and two have counted. Britain Elects has the results.
Four council by-elections tonight: two Conservative, one Liberal Democrat, and one Labour. pic.twitter.com/qnOOpgD9hI
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 2, 2017
Conservative HOLD Mudeford & Friars (Christchurch).
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 2, 2017
Mudeford & Friars Cliff (Christchurch) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 2, 2017
CON: 46.8% (-9.0)
IND: 34.7% (+34.7)
LAB: 6.8% (-9.6)
UKIP: 6.3% (-21.4)
GRN: 5.4% (+5.4)
Conservative GAIN Kersal (Salford) from Labour.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 2, 2017
Kersal (Salford) result:
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 2, 2017
CON: 42.0% (-1.4)
LAB: 27.3% (-21.5)
IND: 17.5% (+17.5)
UKIP: 9.0% (+9.0)
GRN: 2.4% (-3.4)
LDEM: 1.9% (+1.9)
Redcar & Cleveland likely counting in the morning, so tonight's council by-elections so far:https://t.co/Q1lXVZh7PI pic.twitter.com/UFcfTTDbpi
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 3, 2017
