Sinn Féin’s Westminster allowances blocked

So (as well as losing their £120,000 Assembly grant), following today’s decision in the Commons Sinn Féin MPs will lose around £400,000 in Westminster allowances over the next 12 months – that’s £400,000 that, unlike the Assembly grant, they did receive last year.According to the BBC report

A cross-party motion to permanently evict the MPs from their Westminster offices was defeated by 358 to 170.

While the various parties had different views on the sanctions –

Speaking in the debate, Mr Murphy said the government motion “made plain parliament’s disapproval of criminality” while locking all the main parties in to the “democratic path”.

DUP leader Ian Paisley asked how the government could reconcile the motion with the “strong line it was taking on terrorism” in the Bill currently being debated in parliament.

UUP leader David Trimble said that his party had “lukewarm support” for the government motion but would vote for the stronger amendments.

The SDLP’s Seamus Mallon told the chamber that he would not vote for the motion or amendments because he did not want to “make martyrs” of Sinn Fein MPs.

He accused them of “hypocrisy” for taking their Westminster allowances in the first place.

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.