SDLP upbeat despite losing Euro seat

The nationalist SDLP is still on course to retain at least two of its Westminster seats despite further slippage in its vote, its European Parliament candidate Martin Morgan claimed tonight.

The North Belfast councillor was in a philosophical mood after his party lost the European Parliament seat which its former leader John Hume held for 25 years.

He insisted that despite another drop on its Assembly vote last November, the party had held its own.

“At the end of the day, while it is disappointing that we have lost the seat, I think we can hold our heads up high,” he said.

“We may have slipped by 1% but some pundits were totally writing us off at the outset of this campaign.

“We have performed well in Foyle and in South Down and on the basis of the figures could still hold those seats in a Westminster election.

“We have also performed well in South Belfast.”

Mr Morgan said his party was going through a period of renewal.

The SDLP candidate secured 87,559, 3,605 votes behind the Ulster Unionists.

In the last European Election, former leader John Hume received his biggest European vote with 190,731.

Sinn Féin reaffirmed its place as the leading nationalist party in Northern Ireland in this election with 144,541 first preference votes for its candidate Bairbre de Brun.

However the Democratic Unionists’ Jim Allister topped the poll with 175,761 votes, continuing the tradition of his party leader, Ian Paisley, of coming first in every European election since it was first held in 1979.