UK Labour Party and elections in NI

Sir, – Voters will go to the polls this week in an election to choose which of the two major parties of government, Labour or Conservative, will form the next government of the United Kingdom. Voters in Northern Ireland are denied that choice.

They will be voting in an artificial election in which one of the parties of government, the Labour Party, which is likely to govern us after the election, refuses to run candidates here.

Voters here are disenfranchised and are denied their basic democratic rights.

People complain about the dysfunctional nature of our politics here. Do they ever consider that the main destabilising influence is the Labour Party’s ban on standing candidates and the suppression of our democratic political rights?

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With no Labour Party candidates to vote for, this has the knock-on effect of shepherding voters into communal blocs and perpetuating division.

Recent polling evidence from Lucid Talk showed there would be a substantial cross-community Labour Party vote here. And that is from a standing start. If we are at all serious about fostering reconciliation, we must end the deliberate and outrageous suppression of Labour Party electoral politics here. – Yours, etc,

BOYD BLACK,

Secretary,

Labour Party in Northern Ireland,

Belfast.