NI council elections: Voters should not punish SDLP for DUP boycott, says Eastwood

Colum Eastwood said voters should not punish the SDLP over the DUP's boycott of Stormont

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader has urged voters to "think carefully" when casting their ballot in next week's council election.

It will be the first electoral test for the SDLP since it lost four seats in last year's assembly election.

Colum Eastwood said the absence of the institutions meant the political context remained "difficult" for the SDLP.

But he said he did not believe it will mark a "bad day" for his party.

"Nobody is more frustrated with the DUP than I am but I would ask people to think very carefully and be clever," Mr Eastwood said.

"There is no point punishing the SDLP when the party you really want to punish is the DUP."

'Never play politics with lives'

Addressing his party's manifesto launch on Friday, Mr Eastwood said the SDLP had "never brought down" devolution since it was established in 1998 and that if voters wanted to see a functioning government, they need to back the party that is "best committed to them".

"We know this is a difficult context for us and we had an election last year where Michelle O'Neill was elected as first minister, and the DUP starving of her of that is absolutely wrong - but this is a council election.

"We will never play politics with people's lives. We've never pulled down the institutions and will work every single day to ensure people are protected during the cost-of-living crisis," he added.

The SDLP is a party committed to serving voters, its leader has said

Mr Eastwood said he also believed that the DUP would "soon enough" return to the power-sharing executive at Stormont because unionism had no alternative.

The DUP walked out of the Stormont Executive in February 2022 in protest over post-Brexit trade agreements.

The SDLP is running 86 candidates in this election, one more than it stood at the last poll four years ago.

In 2019, it won 59 seats but its vote fell by 1.4%.

The party says its priorities in this election include:

• Fighting for a restored assembly and executive

• Ending the politics of division and building a new Ireland

• Tackling the cost-of-living crisis

• Freezing rates across every council in Northern Ireland

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