‘Time to move on,’ say ousted Sinn Fein MLAs

TWO Derry Sinn Féin MLAs, who were asked to stand aside from their roles, have revealed popularity was at “an all-time low” in the city before Christmas.

Martina Anderson and Karen Mullan were asked to consider their positions after a high-level review of the local comhairle ceantar, along with the entire group leadership.

Both have since confirmed they will not seek re-election but admitted the news came as a “shock” and a “body blow”.

Also asked to stand aside from Derry Comhairle Ceantar were Ms Anderson’s brother Mickey and the partner of Karen Mullan.

The review was carried out after Elisha McCallion, a niece of Ms Anderson, lost her Foyle Westminster seat by 17,000 votes to SDLP leader Colum Eastwood in the 2019 General Election.

And the party also lost five seats on Derry City and Strabane District Council in the last local government elections.

The Irish Examiner reports that an email was sent to Derry Sinn Féin members on Tuesday afternoon from both women which noted that “the last few weeks have been difficult for the party in the city and for us personally”.

It added: “While we may not all agree about how the review was handled or its outcomes, we have to accept that perception is everything in today’s politics and so it is now time to move on.”

The letter notes that the review team arrived in Derry in December telling the local leadership that polling numbers were at an “all-time low” and “that our support in the 18-34 age group was at 18%”.

It “had likely plummeted further given other issues that happened after the October poll”.

The letter says that since then, the party has undertaken private polling, carried out over the period April 28 to May 4, with a sample of 501 respondents, “which concluded its work before we declared that we would not be seeking a nomination to stand in the next Assembly election, that Derry Sinn Féin had stopped the slide in our vote and had actually reversed it, increasing it by 7.5%.”

The letter adds that support among the 18-34 age group has risen to 35%, the highest of any party in the city, and overall, the SDLP vote in Derry is down by 11.4%.

“It was our firm belief that the work we were involved in on a daily basis and being supported by you, our activists, that we had turned the ship around, but we still had a way to go,” Ms Mullan and Ms Anderson wrote.

The letter also asks members to maintain “unity so as to ensure that we retain the two seats here in Derry and help advance Irish unity by ensuring that we become the largest party in the Assembly”.

In the wake of the review, the family of Martina Anderson hit out at her ousting, saying she had been “humiliated” by Sinn Féin.

In a Facebook post, Ms Anderson’s sister, Sharon Burke, said the family believed she has been “sacrificed” by the party.

She said that the party review in Derry “resulted in a massive miscarriage of justice” and the way it was done was “brutal”.

The party “came into Derry to fix problems and left creating more,” she said.

Ms Anderson’s sister added: “The British could not do to our Martina what her comrades and friends have done”.

According to the post, the family said they were proud of what Ms Anderson had achieved politically and add that had Martin McGuinness been alive, this “would never had been allowed”.

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