Sinn Féin has carried out a party restructure in Derry

Sinn Féin say they have accepted recommendations from a review and will set up an electoral strategy group in Derry

Sinn Féin has carried out a restructure of the party in Londonderry following major losses in the last two elections.

The party have said they "accepted recommendations" from a review and will now set up an electoral strategy group.

A number of individuals involved with the party in Derry stood aside last week, the Irish Examiner has reported.

In the 2019 UK General Election, then Sinn Féin MP Elisha McCallion lost her Foyle seat to SDLP leader Colum Eastwood by more than 17,000 votes.

Months earlier, the party then lost five seats on Derry City and Strabane District Council, losing its position as the largest party at council level.

The strategy group will be established in the Foyle constituency ahead of next next year's Assembly elections, Sinn Féin has said.

This move doesn't come as real surprise following the party's poor general election and council election results.

While elsewhere across the island Sinn Féin seemed to be going in one direction, it seemed electorally in Foyle to be going in quite the opposite.

In the 2019 general election, Elisha McCallion only polled 9,771 votes, well short of what would even be considered Sinn Féin's key voter base.

Alarm bells would surely have started to ring after that and an indication that things needed to change, and needed to change quickly.

Former Sinn Féin MLA for Foyle, Maeve McLaughlin, highlighted shortly after that result that the party needed to listen locally and had to make big changes.

Those changes would not just be around policy direction, but also would likely involve changes to key personnel behind the scenes. This is possibly what we are seeing now.

This new body will now try and build things from the ground up and see if it can instil more confidence with potential voters in Foyle come election time.