People Before Profit select Shaun Harkin as Westminster candidate

In a statement, Shaun Harkin said: “I am delighted to have been unanimously selected by the Derry PBP branch to stand in this year’s Westminster election. I am also honoured to have the backing of Eamonn McCann, and look forward to working with him and everyone else in PBP to provide a radical alternative in this election.”

Mr. Harkin went on to say: “In this election we will argue a Socialist Ireland is the solution. It will bring communities together rather than dividing them. There will be no borders, hard or soft, in a Socialist Ireland.

“A Socialist Ireland will break us from the rotten politics of the sectarian state in the North and the conservative right wing state in the south.

“Derry is the capital of injustice. We are going backwards instead of forwards. There are very few decent paying jobs here but there are plenty of food banks. Far too many people struggle on poverty wages or struggle to find a job. People on benefits are demonised. Those looking for work are sanctioned and humiliated. We have a housing crisis and growing numbers of people are homeless. Our great hospitals and schools are being destroyed. Our teachers and nurses are treated without respect. Many of our young people cannot see a future here. Cuts and privatisation from Westminster and Stormont are the cause.”

The Westminster candidate added: “We are at a tipping point. We need a rebellion against poverty and the destruction of our public services. Our campaign will speak out against inequality and injustice. But words aren’t enough; we need deeds. Our campaign will encourage people to resist, to organise, to rebel. Polite negotiation and waiting on politicians to deliver has failed because power concedes nothing without a struggle.

“Every vote for People Before Profit and Jeremy Corbyn is a vote for socialist policies and a blow against the type of society the Tories want to impose on us. We need to unite the resistance across these two islands and fight for a different kind of Europe. One that isn’t dominated by Theresa May and EU bureaucrats who are determined to privatise everything standing.

“I encourage people to back People Before Profit in this election, get on the streets with us against inequality and injustice and join us in the struggle for Socialist Ireland.”