Letter: The Labour Party's refusal to stand in Northern Ireland fuels political instability here
A letter from Boyd Black:
The Labour Party in Northern Ireland (LPNI) will be holding its fringe event at the annual conference in Liverpool on Tuesday (September 24) at 6pm, at Holiday Inn Express, Albert Dock.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, has been invited.
The LPNI are awaiting the report of the recent Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) Review into the party standing candidates in Northern Ireland elections. We are hoping to make some progress towards our aims.
The NEC denies us the right to run Labour Party candidates for our District Councils, the Stormont Assembly and the Westminster Parliament.
In July we were denied the right to to vote for Labour Party candidates to help elect our Labour government. Labour Party electoral politics are suppressed. This, despite the fact that polling evidence suggests there would be sizeable support for Labour Party candidates.
In suppressing our right to vote Labour, the NEC pushes politics in Northern Ireland further into its communal / sectarian trenches.
We believe this voter suppression by the NEC is in large part responsible for NI’s ongoing political instability.
It is our belief that this long standing denial of our democratic political rights is the underlying cause of our ongoing political instability.
Boyd Black, Labour Party of Northern Ireland