Joint City Hall Unionist Grouping Defeated

Belfast councillors have been accused of 'breaking the rules' after the Alliance, SDLP and Sinn Fein politicians united to change the system in Belfast City Hall which had the effect of excluding members of the newly formed Belfast City Unionist Group from key council positions.

Robin Newton, Leader of the DUP in Belfast City Hall, (pictured) said: "Alliance has conspired with the nationalist parties to exclude unionists from the top positions in the Council.

"The Alliance party has said to unionists in Belfast: no unionist need apply. No one should be in any doubt that the Alliance party is hostile to unionism throughout Belfast," he claimed last night.

The former Stormont Junior Minister and sitting East Belfast MLA was speaking after an attempt at a unionist pact to secure Belfast City Council positions was defeated last night.

The move followed an election in which the Ulster Unionists (UUP) lost more than half its councillors, and the unionist councillors attempted to form a single block to secure positions on committees, access to the posts of lord mayor and deputy lord mayor and paid appointments to other bodies.

The failed attempt came just weeks after unionist councillors in Castlereagh agreed to 'sit together within council' and take a common whip on decisions - effectively forming a DUP/UUP grouping to dominate activities.

That attempt succeeded even though Castlereagh Alliance Group Leader Geraldine Rice condemned the DUP's move to form a pact after the DUP lost their overall majority on the council.

Had a similar move worked in Belfast, the deal struck between the unionists would have seen the DUP, UUP and independent unionist Frank McCoubrey taking powerful positions.

But, with Alliance 'getting revenge' and joining the SDLP and Sinn Fein to vote the Belfast pact down, it instead became the main beneficiary after voting to change the rules.

Council posts will now be allocated under the D'Hondt mechanism based on party support, irrespective of whether parties come together as a group.

The DUP said that means that there will now only be one unionist lord mayor of Belfast during the council's four-year term.

Mr Newton said the DUP rejected claims by the SDLP's Tim Attwood that attempting to form a pan-unionist group was a regressive step.

Mr Newton said: "What has motivated us to do this? I think it was the history of this chamber over the last few years where posts haven't been allocated proportionately."

He claimed that the SDLP had "abused democracy" and that the DUP had been "discriminated against during the last mandate" making the City Hall a "cold house for unionists".

But Mr Attwood said that the people of Belfast had voted for parties, not groups that were not in place before the election.

Sinn Fein's Jim McVeigh said: "We had an election on May 5 and people voted for political parties: they didn’t vote for make-believe political groups."

See: DUP Links-Up With UUP In Castlereagh

(BMcC/GK)