North’s religious-political divide will continue to define its politics

IT looks like leftward-leaning voters in Northern Ireland are going to be spoilt for choice. At its conference in Bournemouth yesterday the British Labour Party lifted a ban which had prevented Northern Ireland residents joining the party.

This change came about solely because of the actions of a 48-year-old Belfast trade union shop steward, Andrew McGivern. McGivern launched a legal action in which, curiously, he argued that he was being discriminated against under Britain's Race Relations legislation because he was not allowed to join the British Labour Party. Labour has decided to head off the spectre of this costly legal action by amending its rules to allow him to join.

British Labour has no intention of organising in Northern Ireland; the motion simply allows people in Northern Ireland to join the party. This, however, hasn't prevented at least one British Labour MP, who favoured the rule change, getting carried away and claiming that the party is now set to alter politics in Northern Ireland in a non-sectarian way.