Labour Alternative to Launch Manifesto at Teenage Kicks Mural
10.30am Sat 30th April, Bridge End
New cross-community, left-wing party Labour Alternative is to publicly launch its manifesto for next week’s Assembly election at the Teenage Kicks mural at Bridge End in Belfast tomorrow, with the party’s three young candidates and supporters present.
The document is entitled ‘Time for a New Kind of Politics – A Left Manifesto for a New Generation’. Key policies include an end to austerity, free education, voting rights at 16, same-sex marriage equality and the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.
Speaking in advance of the event, Courtney Robinson (18) – the youngest candidate contesting next Thursday’s election – said:
“There is a growing disconnect between the Stormont establishment and the majority of ordinary people, particularly young people. This is reflected in falling voter turnout and the prevalent sense that “they’re all the same” up on the hill. In many senses, they are. While they bicker about issues like flags and parades, all the five main parties are wedded to the same right-wing austerity agenda.Their policies have left one in five people in poverty, decimated our public services, created mass youth unemployment, denied women and LGBT people their basic rights and maintained sectarian division.”
Sean Burns (19) added:
“The growing support for socialist Bernie Sanders in the US and the movement which saw Jeremy Corbyn elected to the Labour leadership in Britain show that people internationally are looking for a radical, left alternative to poverty, inequality and division. We believe desire for the same kind of alternative is growing in Northern Ireland. From the point of view of the my generation, it’s time for a new kind of politics. But it’s also time to retie the knot of history by rebuilding the labour tradition which in the past represented many who rejected sectarian division and wanted to fight for a better life for all.”
Conor Sheridan (24) said:
“A start has to be made. Labour Alternative is a genuine attempt to build support in both communities. We have candidates from both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds. Our members are trade union, socialist, LGBT and community activists.We support policies which unite ordinary people, not divide them. Labour Alternative respects the aspirations of all but our aspiration is a society where the majority are united in common purpose to overcome division.”
You can view our Manifesto here
or
Click this link to download
