Sinn Féin MP in Tory fringe debate

A Sinn Féin MP will become the first member of his party to take part in a debate during the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool today.

Conor Murphy, who captured the Newry and Armagh seat at the last General Election, will take part in a debate in Blackpool which will also feature Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson, the Conservatives’ Northern Ireland spokesman David Lidington and Ulster Unionist Assembly member David Burnside.

The move comes after the IRA last week was reported to have decommissioned all of its weapons.

But it also takes place almost 21 years after the Provisionals detonated a bomb which killed five people at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had a narrow escape in the attack on the Grand Hotel.

Mr Murphy welcomed the opportunity for him to put Sinn Féin’s case to Conservative Party members for the first time.

“Given the record of the British Tory Party and their policy towards Ireland over many years, this event will provide for the first time an opportunity for Sinn Féin to place on the record the fact that there are those who share a different vision of the future,” he said.

“In particular, a different vision of the future relationship between Ireland and Britain.

“The British Conservative Party claim to support the Good Friday Agreement.

“If this is the case then they need to join with us and other pro-Agreement voices to set as a priority in the time ahead the re-establishment of the political institutions and the implementation of the other outstanding agreement matters.”