Belfast South: Sean Burns – 871 (2.4%)
Belfast East: Courtney Robinson – 517 (1.4%)
East Antrim: Conor Sheridan – 551 (1.7%)
The stunning result for People Before Profit in West Belfast – to be joined in Stormont by Eamonn McCann from Foyle – is one of the biggest stories of the election and rightly so. We send congratulations to everyone involved.
Labour Alternative activists are very happy with our own smaller breakthrough. In South Belfast and East Belfast, our votes were won despite a surge to the Greens, who went on to take a seat in South Belfast.
In South Belfast, Sean Burns got the best result for a radical left or labour movement candidate since 1992, when Peter Hadden took 875 for the Labour & Trade Union Group. He beat everyone but the Executive parties and the Greens.
In both East Belfast and East Antrim, you’d have to go back to 1987 to find higher left/labour votes than those achieved by Courtney and Conor.
Our young candidates – who weren’t born when these previous votes were achieved – have put socialist politics back on the map in these constituencies in a serious way. This is an excellent start to building a left challenge to austerity, sectarianism and discrimination.
