The Alliance leader’s claim that she cannot find time to participate in an event on Irish unity during the general election campaign but can remain as full-time Justice Minister is taking voters for fools, SDLP Opposition Leader Matthew O’Toole has said.
Naomi Long confirmed today she would not be participating in the event at the SSE Arena on Saturday 15 June due to election pressures.
O’Toole was speaking shortly after the SDLP’s own New Ireland Commission staged an event to mark the first European election in which Northern Ireland will not be able to vote and to make the case for Northern Ireland to take its viable route back into the EU via a new Ireland.
Speaking after the event, Matthew O’Toole MLA said:
“The Alliance Party is entitled to have no position on whether we rejoin the EU via a new Ireland, but voters deserve better than the wink/nudge opportunism its leader is indulging. At times Alliance representatives are keen to associate themselves with the conversation on our future, at other times they seem to tactically run from it and on other occasions they revert to implying that anyone with any constitutional aspiration is sectarian and tribal.
“Many voters of all perspectives will reflect on the decision to pull out of this event – an hour’s commitment inside Naomi Long’s constituency – and ask why it was an impossible ask but overseeing the entire criminal justice system is perfectly manageable alongside the campaign. This claim is simply not credible and taking voters of all perspectives for fools. Naomi’s claim of an election campaign clash is rendered even more absurd by the fact that her replacement, Nuala McAllister, is a candidate in the same election.
“On the day we should have been voting for MEPs, the SDLP is clear in its aspiration to return to the European Union. We are passionate about that vision and would urge voters who share that aspiration to send SDLP MPs back to Westminster to make that case.”
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