Belfast mayor censured for boycott

Belfast City Council has passed a unionist motion condemning Lord Mayor Martin Morgan’s decision to boycott British government official John Spellar.

Mr Morgan, a member of the SDLP, is refusing to attend any engagements with Mr Spellar in protest at his role in readmitting two convicted murderers into the British army.

Mr Spellar sat on an army board which decided to readmit Mark Wright and James Fisher after they had served three years of their life sentences for murdering Belfast teenager Peter McBride.

The 18-year-old was shot in the back while running away from British soldiers in Belfast in 1992.

Last night, all unionist councillors and the Alliance Party supported the DUP motion to censure Mr Morgan over his boycott of Mr Spellar, who is now a minister in the British Government’s Northern Ireland Office.

The motion was passed by 24 votes to 16, with the SDLP and Sinn Fein both voting against.

Unionist councillors claimed Mr Morgan’s boycott could harm the interests of the people he was elected to represent.

They said the Lord Mayor should put aside his personal views and meet with Mr Spellar.

Mr Morgan had earlier pointed out the hypocrisy of Mr Spellar’s decision to readmit two convicted murderers to the British army, when another soldier was expelled for cheating on a television game show.