In 1922, the Northern Ireland government sought to establish its authority; it started by suppressing 21 Nationalist local authorities who had pledged their allegiance to The Dail. In July, legislation was rushed through to abolish proportional representation in local government elections. This went unchecked by Westminster as Prime Minister David Lloyd George was preoccupied with dealing with divisions his coalition government and was unwilling to intervene. As Nationalist groups refused to cooperate with the NI government, Unionists found themselves in a position of determining how electoral districts without being challenged. This freehand would result in blatant gerrymandering in favor of the Unionist Party. For example, in one district, Nationalists cast 5,381 more votes than Unionists but the electoral boundaries gave Unionists a majority of 18 seats over Nationalists. Joseph Devlin, the MP from west Belfast, concluded that Nationalists could no longer afford to abstain from taking their seats effectively giving Unionists free-reign and he decided to attend the NI Parliament to mitigate any further damage.