Two of the North's nationalist mayors were criticised today for announcing plans to boycott events involving a Northern Ireland Office minister. The SDLP mayors of Belfast, Mr Martin Morgan, and Derry, Mr Shaun Gallagher, are snubbing all public functions involving Northern Ireland Office minister Mr JohnSpellar in a row over the British army's refusal to dismiss two Scots Guards convicted of killing a Belfast teenager.
Mr Spellar is being singled out because he sat on an British army board which retained Scots Guardsmen James Fisher and Mark Wright, who were jailed for shooting deadPeter McBride in 1992.
Democratic Unionist MP Mr Gregory Campbell accused the SDLP today of "double standards" over the "partisan" use of mayoral offices to advance a particular cause.
The East Derry MP said: "The SDLP cannot have it both ways."They cannot criticise, as they have done frequently, unionist mayors for using their mayoral positions to advance unionism while on this occasion they advance a nationalist cause.
"The issue here is one of consistency, or in the case of the SDLP, the distinct lack of it."The anger of Mr McBride's family and nationalist politicians was further fuelled last week by the British government's rejection of calls for the soldiers' dismissal.
Mr McBride was shot in the back after he was stopped by an British army patrol in Belfast's New Lodge area in 1992.Guardsmen Fisher and Wright said they believed he was carrying a bomb.
The pair were jailed life for his murder in 1995 but were released three years later and were allowed to rejoin their regiment.
The Court of Appeal in Belfast ruled two months ago that the Scots Guardsmen should not have been allowed back into the army. But the court stopped short of ordering the army to dismiss them.
PA