Sinn Féin Assembly member David Hyland has resigned from the party amid signs of rising tensions within republicanism over policing. Other senior republicans have accused the Sinn Féin leadership of threatening republicans opposed to current moves to endorse the PSNI.
Mr Hyland, who last month was deselected from seeking to regain his Newry and Armagh seat in the scheduled March Assembly elections, yesterday announced that he had resigned from the party. He said he was considering standing as an independent in the March election.
Sinn Féin is now the third largest party in the Transitional Assembly with 23 seats, one seat behind the Ulster Unionist Party. Mr Hyland is the fourth sitting MLA who will not stand for Sinn Féin in the election.
He had questioned Sinn Féin's moves over recent months to call an ardfheis on policing. "I leave secure in the knowledge that I remain true to my republican principles," he said yesterday.
Mr Hyland, a former mayor of Newry, denied that his resignation was "sour grapes" over being deselected. He said he would consult with his family, friends and supporters before deciding whether he would stand again.
Mr Hyland was last month deselected with Newry and Armagh MLA colleague Pat O'Rawe, although there are indications that Ms O'Rawe may be re-imposed on the Sinn Féin ticket by the party's ruling ardchomhairle.
The party also announced that North Belfast MLA Kathy Stanton and Mid Ulster Assemblywoman Geraldine Dougan would not be standing in March for personal reasons. Sinn Féin denied they were standing down because of their concerns over policing.
Meanwhile, a founder leader of the Provisional IRA, John Kelly, and a former leader of IRA Maze hunger strikers, Brendan Hughes, have written a letter, under the umbrella group No More Lies, fiercely critical of the Sinn Féin leadership.
It questioned whether recent threats said to have emanated from dissident republicans against Sinn Féin leaders, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Gerry Kelly, were in fact genuine.
"In our view there are threats being made. But they are coming from Sinn Féin and are directed against republicans who seek a wider debate on the policing matter," they wrote in a letter published in yesterday's Irish News.
