Tory slams Ulster Labour Party 'scandal'

It is a scandal that Tony Blair’s Labour Party has refused to put itself before the electorate in Northern Ireland, a Tory in the North claimed today.

Northern Ireland Conservative chairman Julian Robertson urged the Labour Party to allow its members in the North to set up constituency parties as he prepared to take part in a Friends of the Union debate with trade unionist Andy McGivern at Stormont.

His comments came as Labour Party members in the province distanced themselves from the meeting, insisting Mr McGivern was not representing local members.

Mr McGivern has been planning a race discrimination case against Labour’s National Executive after it turned down applications for constituency associations to be set up in Northern Ireland, similar to those in England, Scotland and Wales.

Last year he succeeded in overturning a 79-year ban on people in Northern Ireland becoming members of the party.

Mr Robertson, whose party contests local government, Westminster and Stormont Assembly elections like their Conservative colleagues in England, Scotland and Wales, said Labour members were going through the same kind of battle for recognition from their party hierarchy as local Tories over the past decade.

“Labour Party members in the province are facing the same battles as us,” he said.

“The Labour leadership have got to wake up and realise that it is a scandal that their party, which is supposedly the people’s party, does not offer itself to the people in one part of the country that it governs.”

Mr Robertson said there was a need for Labour and the Conservatives to be a part of Northern Ireland’s political life.

He also said he believed the Liberal Democrats should enter the electoral fray in Northern Ireland.

“We have to move away from sectarian politics in Northern Ireland,” he said.

“We have believed for a long time that there is no future in sectarian politics.

“There is no long-term future in having either two unionist parties and two nationalist parties.

“We are now in the situation where there is a very strong nationalist party and to counterbalance that we have a very strong unionist party in the shape of the DUP.

“The SDLP appeared to be going down the plughole fast and the Ulster Unionists seem to be following them.

“Therefore there is a role for the Conservatives and Labour to appeal to that middle ground because at the end of the day, while you may have an education minister at Stormont, it should not matter whether he or she is a unionist or nationalist.

"What really matters is where they stand on the education issues.”

The secretary of the Northern Ireland Labour members, Boyd Black, distanced local party members from the Friends of the Union meeting taking place today.

He said: “Labour members in Northern Ireland are not participating in the Friends of the Union meeting.

“While we agree with the substance of Andy McGivern’s court case, he is speaking at this meeting on his own behalf and not on the behalf of our own organisation.”

Mr McGivern confirmed that he was there in a personal capacity.

“I am going to speak as a trade unionist and an individual Labour member who is taking a case against the party,” he said.

“Invitations have gone out to other Labour members in the province but I am not speaking officially for the Labour group.

“I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate and, as I’ve said in the past, I will speak to anyone and everyone who will listen about the unfairness of the situation.

“The Labour members in Northern Ireland are being treated as second-class citizens by the leadership who are denying them the same rights as their colleagues in Scotland, England and Wales.

“It is with some reluctance that I have had to pursue this through a legal route but if I have to embarrass the party and force them into treating Labour members in Northern Ireland equally, then so be it.”