SDLP sets new standards in hypocrisy

11.27.35am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 6th Apr 2006

The Alliance Party's youth wing has expressed disbelief at the hypocrisy of the SDLP, after it complained about not being invited to a cross-community event in Bangor - having excluded the Alliance Party from a cross-community event it was organizing!

A "Shared Future" event organized by the SDLP at the end of the month includes SDLP Leader Mark Durkan and Unionist representation, but no representation from Alliance as the only cross-community party in the Assembly, nor from either of the largest parties.

Young Alliance Chairman Ian James Parsley stated: "This constitutes galling hypocrisy from a party which accuses others of refusing to share a platform. People talk grandly of a 'Shared Future', but what hope is there of that while people deliberately exclude those opposed to the current sectarian political consensus?

"How long are we going to go on talking at each other rather than with each other? How long are we going to allow political parties to base their views on a warped view of the past rather than a vision for the future? How long are we going to elect leaders who are happy to see their areas segregated up along sectarian lines? Yet the SDLP, as a fully paid-up member of the sectarian political consensus, cannot bear to hear any challenge to it.

"For as long as politics is based on a sectarian divide, political instability and social stagnation are inevitable. People are sick and tired of this stop-start political process. It is time we got rid of the sectarian political consensus and replaced it with a Government for Northern Ireland which genuinely thinks and feels for all our people.

"This cannot happen while political leaders irresponsibly abuse the term 'cross-community' to engage in sectarian tokenism."

ENDS