Northern Ireland as a political unit came into existence in 1920 to 1921, when an autonomous parliament and government were established in Belfast with jurisdiction over six northern Irish counties. When the rest of Ireland secured independence from the United Kingdom in 1921, Northern Ireland remained under British sovereignty but enjoyed an exceptionally high level of autonomy. The Ulster Unionist party, institutionally linked to the British Conservative party and dominated by business interests and the local aristocracy, enjoyed overwhelming support from the Protestant majority of the population, winning every election and forming every government. The Unionist party maintained Protestant working-class support by emphasizing the danger to the state's existence posed by any breach in Protestant solidarity and supporting the extension of British welfare provisions to Northern Ireland after the Second World War. The Catholic minority, forming a third of the state's population, was almost completely excluded from the exercise of power at all levels.¹