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From Socialist Worker, No. 109, 15 February 1969, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
BELFAST:– Peoples Democracy, the militant civil rights movement, is putting forward 11 candidates in the Northern Ireland crisis election on February 24.
Among constituencies which they will contest is Bannside, where Michael Farrell will oppose both Prime Minister O’Neill and the Rev Ian Paisley.
And socialist Eamonn McCann is standing as a Northern Ireland Labour Party candidate in the Foyle constituency in Derry.
The policies on which the PD candidates will fight the election are:–
‘The forthcoming general election, like all elections in N. Ireland, is essentially undemocratic,’ says PD in a statement. ‘This is the main point which we want to highlight and change.’
The statement stressed that PD remains a mass movement and that individuals within it, if elected, were committed to the struggle for civil rights both inside and outside parliament.
The election has been presented by the right-wing press here as a struggle between ‘moderates’ and extremist Tory and Unionist forces.
The people who have supported PD in their civil rights campaign are combining to ignore the original alternative to a torn and discredited Tory Unionist Party and the ‘half-a-loaf’ Green Nationalist Tories, who are the other side of the two-tone sectarian coin.
British socialists and others who want to help should contact Alan Morrison 01-969 0915 or PD in Belfast 0232 660861.
Money, election workers, cars and loudhailers are needed. Money to: PD, c/o Belfast Bank, Bradbury Place, Belfast 9.
Last updated: 26 October 2020