  We examine the capacity to identify binary systems from astrometric
deviations alone. We apply our analysis to the Gaia eDR3 and DR2 data,
specifically the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars. We show we must renormalize
(R)UWE over the local volume to avoid biasing local observations, giving a
Local Unit Weight Error (LUWE). We use the simple criterion of LUWE>2, along
with a handful of quality cuts to remove likely contaminants, to identify
unresolved binary candidates. We identify 22,699 binary candidates within 100
pc of the Sun (just under 10% of sources in this volume). We find an
astrometric binary candidate fraction of around 20% for giant stars, 10% on the
Main Sequence and lower than 1% for White Dwarfs. We also look for Variability
Induced Movers, by computing the correlation between photometric variability
and astrometric noise -- and show that VIMs may dominate the binary population
of sub-Solar mass MS stars. We discuss the possibility and limitations of
identifying non-luminous massive companions from astrometry alone, but find
that our method is insensitive to these. Finally, we compare the astrometric
deviations of MS binaries to the simulated sample from paper I, which show
excellent agreement, and compute the astrometric candidate binary fraction as a
function of absolute magnitude.
