Labour member in legal threat to party over NI ban

Labour has long regarded the nationalist SDLP as its sister party in Northern Ireland and – unlike the Conservatives – refused to allow local members to stand for election.

Until 2003 the party would not even accept members from Northern Ireland but relented after legal challenges.

In recent years, the local party membership has grown rapidly to well over 1,000 and many of those individuals do not support the SDLP for reasons which range from its nationalism to its socially conservative positions on issues such as abortion.

Now a member of the Labour Party executive in Northern Ireland has instructed solicitors to threaten the Labour Party with High Court action over what is alleged to be a discriminatory policy contrary to human rights law, giving it until June 2 to respond.

Damien Harris, who hails from the UK’s most westerly constituency, Fermanagh-South Tyrone, told the BBC: “I, and thousands of members of the Labour Party in Northern Ireland, have grown impatient at the continuing delays with the review into the rights of members in Northern Ireland to stand for election.

“We are demanding one simple thing – to be afforded the same rights of membership as any other member of the Labour Party.”

Under Ed Miliband’s leadership, the party engaged in a lengthy review of the policy which ultimately decided that it should continue.

Jeremy Corbyn has initiated a fresh review but Mr Harris said that the party was “perpetuating this discriminatory prohibition”, something he said was “the antithesis of the very reason the Labour Party was first formed”.

Responding to the legal challenge, Labour highlighted that the party was reviewing its policy on the issue but said that this had been paused for the election campaign.