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Statements by Our Candidates in the 2005 Elections

Eamonn McCann, SEA candidate for Foyle and for Waterside Rural

Sectarianism behind attitudes to water charages

Saturday, April 30th 2005

Five days top go and still no answers from any of the main parties on how they are going to stop water charges.

They say that they are against the charges---but that they are also against non-payment of the charges. Every one of them---Sinn Fein, the SDLP, DUP and UUs---rejects the only strategy with a hope of defeating the charges and keeping water in the public sector.

They have no sensible explanation of why they oppose non-payment. All they come up with is wind and blether. Sinn Fein has tried to persuade people the rent and rates strike of the 1970s is a precedent. But we have been able to expose that as the nonsense it is. And they have failed to come up with any other excuse.

With only a few days to go, I again challenge the four other parties to explain their strategy for ensuring that water stays public, that the water service jobs will be saved and that people aren't made to pay charges. The SEA has a clear strategy which will work. If they have an alternative strategy to offer, let's hear it before Thursday.

On this issue, their attitude to the voters comes close to contempt. They don't believe they have to explain themselves. They think they can take "their" voters for granted.

In the last stretch of the campaign, we will be collecting pledges of non-payment as we go door to door. Whatever the result, we will come out of this election with a stronger base for building a non-payment campaign. With or without the backing of any major party, we are going to see this through.

I repeat that the real reason they are all against non-payment is that this campaign has to cross the community divide. It can't be won in Andersonstown unless it's also won in Rathcoole. We need Tullyally as well as the Brandywell on board.

The water charges campaign brings people together in political action on a basis which has nothing to do with the community anybody comes from. This is why the main parties are frightened of it. It undermines the sectarian pattern of politics they are all part of.





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