THE head of the Labour Party in Northern Ireland has accused his own party of discrimination after the party ruled out allowing its members to stand for election in the province.
The party’s Ulster members — thought to number around 300 — have fought a long campaign with their own party leadership in London in an attempt to be allowed to contest seats in Northern Ireland.
However, it has emerged that Labour’s ruling National Executive Council (NEC) voted on Tuesday night to maintain the ban on Labour members in Northern Ireland standing for election.
The decision reinforces the long-standing anomaly that despite Labour being a unionist party in the rest of the UK it endorses the nationalist SDLP in Northern Ireland.
A leaked report obtained by the Belfast Telegraph showed that although in public SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell had said he was relaxed about Labour contesting council elections, in private the SDLP’s MPs had told Labour that to do so would be “a hostile act”.
Boyd Black, Labour’s secretary in Northern Ireland, told the News Letter that it was “not the result that we wanted” and said that he was “disappointed”.
The academic said: “We would consider that to be a neglect of its political responsibility to develop the Labour Party politics throughout the state. The party is continuing to deny us our fundamental democratic rights in a discriminatory way.
“We will remain unable to vote for the party that aspires to govern us and which if successful in the next General Election will set virtually all of our taxes and determine the level of our public services or benefits so we are effectively disenfranchised.
“It is ironic that on the same day that the NEC report was issued — yesterday — Tom Watson MP, Labour’s campaign manager, circulated all Labour Party members in Northern Ireland asking for financial contributions to the Labour Party’s General Election campaign.”
Dr Black said that Mr Watson’s letter said that the letter said that Labour was “fighting for fairness in the north, south, east and west - in Scotland and in Wales. There will be no ‘no-go’ areas for Labour.”
Dr Black said that there was no real way that the decision could be challenged until after the next General Election when the party has to formally review the decision.
“It’s final up to the next General Election,” he said.
However, Dr Black welcomed another decision to come out of the party executive, which will see the creation of a council for Labour for Ireland, with the Labour Party in Northern Ireland, Labour in the Republic of Ireland and the SDLP.
Northern Ireland Conservative Bill Manwaring accused Labour of “abandoning” people in Northern Ireland and failing to support the Union.
The former Ulster Unionist said: “It’s pretty rich for [shadow secretary of state] Vernon Coaker to pontificate about how the Government should respond to disorder in Northern Ireland when his party is not even prepared to stand candidates in elections here.
“In fact the Labour Party prefers to support the SDLP, a party committed to a united Ireland, rather than offer voters here a UK, centre-left platform.”