Catholic party shows well in poll

Press, 27 January 1986, Page 10

Catholic party shows well in poll

NZPA-AP Belfast Protestant legislators who were returned to office in Northern Irish Parliamentary by-elec-tions appear to be heading for a showdown with the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, over the Government’s commitment to the Anglo-Irish accord. Several British papers said that Thursday’s election had backfired on the unionist legislators, who has resigned en masse to force the vote as an exhibition of public sentiment against the accord.

Although they won with margins of 79 to 96 per cent in 14 of the 15 districts, unionists lost Newry-Armagh, on the border with Ireland, to a candidate of the mainline Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party, which supports the Dublin-London agreement. In the districts it lost, the S.D.L.P. improved its showing against Sinn Fein, the legal political arm of the outlawed Irish Republican Army. Sinn Fein says that the accord is worthless, and thousands of Catholics, ap-

parently prepared to give the deal a chance, switched their allegiance to the S.D.L.P. Most of the winners are expected to return to their seats in the British Parliament this week and are likely to set some sort of unofficial deadline for the Prime Minister to pull out of the agreement signed on November 15, which gives the Irish Republic a consultative role in the British province.

The British Press Association said that the Northern Ireland Secretary, Mr Tom King, would try to arrange talks with

the hardline Protestant unionists and the Irish nationalist leaders in a new attempt to revive political dialogue.

The Government insists it will stick by the agreement, but the loyalists have given warnings that opponents of it could make Northern Ireland ungovernable with widespread disruption of local administration unless Mrs Thatcher thinks again.

The . 14 re-elected unionists met in Belfast at " e week-end to discuss rotest strategy in their wn constituencies.