Alex White: Asking voters to give one of Dublin’s MEPs to Northern Ireland is misconceived

Alex White. Picture: GERRY MOONEY

Alex White

Mark Durkan is welcome as a candidate in the European Parliament election in Dublin. But his move to Fine Gael and the European Peoples Party is very regrettable. It signals an abandonment of social democracy and its political organisation, the Party of European Socialists.

Durkan is an accomplished politician having been a MLA, MP, and leader of the SDLP. He and I know each other from our time together in student politics in the 1980s. He has every right to run for the European Parliament and I look forward to competing with him for the votes of Dubliners this May.