SDLP likely to run in every constituency across Northern Ireland

Chris had a piece up this morning about whether a Nationalist/Remain understanding was still possible for the upcoming elections.

Following on from his post I contacted the SDLP to see if the party were going to stand in the various constituencies across the North and the response I received from a party spokesman is below;

The SDLP sought to bring together a broad coalition of parties and candidates to maximise the pro-Europe mandate in Northern Ireland. When it was clear that other parties would not support that aim, we proposed support for independent, non-party aligned, pro Europe candidates who could take on Brexit MPs. That proposal was also rejected by others.

The SDLP is now in the process of selecting candidates in constituencies across the North who will take the fight to the Tories at Westminster, opposing their hard brexit and even harder austerity agenda.

The first paragraph simply repeats original proposal from the SDLP and it will be difficult for the party to find a way to back other party candidates in certain constituencies such as North Belfast.

Slugger understands that the likelihood is that the party will stand in every constituency in Northern Ireland and that the proposal that was made was not able to be brought to fruition. This would be in line with the approach the party took back in 2015 when this issue came up again.

David McCann

David McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs