SDLP South Belfast latest: Boyle pulls out as McDevitt endorses Hanna

SDLP Cllr, Declan Boyle has pulled out of the race to succeed Alasdair McDonnell as an MLA. Speaking about his decision Boyle said; I have taken this decision after reflecting on the direction on which I want to focus my political career. For many people, it is understandable that the natural progression for a councillor would be towards the Assembly. However since putting my name forward I have realised that my passion for politics resides within the council. This at …

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Timeline of an Assembly vacancy, part two: the correspondence trail

Catching up on a few emails, I realised that I’d neglected to post the second part of a post started in early September about the timeline for co-opting a replacement MLA (Conall McDevitt) and the sequencing of the process between the Speaker, EONI and the political party (SDLP in this case). While relatively mundane it does illustrate the various stages and worth putting into the public name to remind us of the process the next time an MLA needs to …

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Fearghal McKinney 113 – 69 Claire Hanna (South Belfast)

Fearghal McKinney chairing a panel at the UUP conference

SDLP members in South Belfast voted this evening to select the replacement MLA for Conall McDevitt. He’ll become the MLA sometime tomorrow, once party leader and nominating officer Alasdair McDonnell informs the Chief Electoral Officer, and once the CEO confirms that Fearghal McKinney is happy to be returned as MLA for South Belfast. While the result isn’t in doubt, Martina Purdy who spent her evening at the Welly Park Hotel mentions that the voting statistic only had one source … …

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UPDATE-Hanna v McKinney-SDLP new MLA Fearghal McKinney!

Well the battle is on as Balmoral councillor Claire Hanna will face off against former UTV journalist Fearghal McKinney in a bid to replace Conall McDevitt. Around 300 members of the South Belfast branch of the SDLP will gather to choose one of these two people to represent the constituency for the next three years. My money is still on Claire Hanna to win the ballot. She brings everything that the SDLP wants going forward, youth, hard work, ideas and …

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Timeline of an Assembly vacancy using South Belfast as an example (bottom line, SDLP need to give a name to EONI by Friday 13th)

The NI Assembly has had numerous vacancies and co-options over the years, but few have generated as much interest at the resignation of South Belfast MLA Conall McDevitt and the SDLP’s process of replacing him. So how does the process work? Who’s involved? And what is the timeline? Article 6B of The Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2009 holds the relevant process. Section 6B (1) was triggered last week when the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Graham Shields received written …

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UPDATE-Conall McDevitt leaves a huge void for the SDLP to fill…

Today brought the curtain down on Conall Mc Devitt’s short three and a half year run as an MLA. Always controversial and never boring McDevitt made a real impact on the political life of Northern Ireland. The derision he endured over his southern roots were constantly used against him with labels like ‘the mouth from the south’ and the infamous moment on the Nolan Show when a woman told him to ‘keep his nose’ out of our business ignoring the …

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[Updated] Another summer storm in a teacup over an MLA’s expenses…

So there’s a stink about Conall McDevitt using his wife’s research company to pay for secretarial work, and research. Tara Mills for BBCNI has most of the detail… For 2010 and 2011 JM Consulting was paid significant sums of money for what was described as ‘research and secretarial’ work. JM Consulting is Joanne Murphy Consulting – she is a Queen’s University academic and also Mr McDevitt’s wife. But according to the assembly register for both years, when asked if any …

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Tweet like a politician … ideally, thinking about how it’ll be read and misread

Tools like Twitter and Facebook can make a politician into a one person media outlet, broadcasting what they hear, see and think without the mediation of the traditional broadcast and print media. Gone are the days of being off-the-record and silent until a reporter turns up to note your words. Politicians can be online and on-the-record all day and every day. Yet these tools carry the risk that context is lost and nuance is unstated. During elections social media is …

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Ignoring the small issue of a border poll, what might a new united Ireland be like?

MLA Conall McDevitt

(This should have appeared early on Friday morning – until the gremlins got in the way.)

Last week, before the release of the BBC NI Spotlight poll, I talked to a local MLA about the concept of a new Ireland. Over the last few months there has been an increasing level of chatter analysing the mechanics of calling a border poll and interpreting census results.

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to delve under the instinctive longing and loathing that is so often associated with the notion of a united Ireland to explore what the new state might look like if the conditions could ever be met to have a poll.

Much – though not all – of the commentary comes back to promoting a nationalist ideal of an El Dorado paradise or declaring the unionist nightmare of forcibly cutting ties to the British monarch.

Intellectually it’s a lot more interesting to get beyond the emotion and wonder … What if? What might be the shape of this potential state? How might the population in the north east corner relate to those in the south west? What governance arrangements might be put in place, or indeed left in place? What parts of Northern Ireland’s public sector and civil society would survive, or even thrive? How would the six counties integrate with the twenty six?

And while a poll may be a distant prospect, grasping the Presbyterian principle of ‘not refusing light from any quarter’ I wondered whether a Northern Ireland that is still settled in the Union had anything to learn from new Ireland thinking.

I’d heard Conall McDevitt, SDLP MLA for South Belfast, talking about the importance of region at an election event a couple of years ago, so I met up with him last week to pick his brains. We talked about identity, economy and his opinion of Sinn Féin’s “flag-waving” activity around the border poll. But first I asked about his vision of a united Ireland.

I think one of the great issues with the debate around the a border poll and in fact one of the great issues within both Irish unionism and Irish nationalism is that we have an awful habit of wanting to either remain in the union or to be in a united Ireland. But if we’re honest with ourselves we haven’t done a huge amount of work in trying to work through what that would look like (if you’re thinking about a united Ireland) or to consider the practical issues around it. How would you pay for it? What system of government might be best? Would it be a unitary state? Or would you have a federal Ireland?

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The SDLP leadership candidates, ranked on internet use and internal organisation

The SDLP elects its fifth leader this coming weekend, with four male candidates in the running (the deputy leadership has been filled, without contest, by a woman). Since 1998, when the party topped the first preference tallies for the first Assembly election, the SDLP has lost votes and seats at almost every election cycle (the one exception being a sliver of a gain at the last European election) and now runs consistently 10% behind Sinn Féin, whereas twenty years ago …

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McDevitt registering a friendly base within the SDLP?

Ken Reid notes that the nominations for leader of the SDLP close tomorrow. And it seems Conall McDevitt may be contemplating something, if not an official move then signalling the beginnings of a power base within the party… The South Belfast MLA is keeping his cards close to his chest but my information is five and probably six branches are prepared to nominate him. It could be quite a battle before the leadership election at the party conference in Belfast in …

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Ministerial Responsibility? It depends on who the Minister is

On Twitter this morning, John O’Dowd made the reasonable point that many of the calls for the Minister to resign are attempts to score political points. The proof is that few who are currently calling for the resignation seem able to say why. If you go to the Sinn Fein website you’ll see they’re scaling up the ‘this is political’ charge with a decidedly ungenerous swipe at Conall McDevitt. But if you dig a little deeper and go back to …

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