McCann urges DUP voters to consider PBP

In a direct appeal to Londonderry's DUP constituency - around 6,500 voters in Foyle in the 2005 Westminster poll - the veteran civil rights campaigner asked local Protestants to think again and vote for People Before Profit.

Mr McCann previously stood in the constituency in 2005 for the Socialist Environmental Alliance (SEA) when he received 1,649 and came fourth in the poll.

Last year PBP and the SEA merged and now Mr McCann is asking the people of Londonderry to abandon the traditional parties and vote socialist.

"We strive to represent the interests of working class people irrespective of the community they come from," he said.

"We would stand up for the working class Protestants of Foyle with far more strength and determination than the DUP has shown. Not that that would be very difficult," he commented.

"The DUP, like the other mainstream parties, is depending on people voting Orange or Green automatically. We are asking people of all backgrounds to read our manifesto, to consider the programme we are putting forward, and to ask themselves whether it does not make more sense than anything they are hearing from other parties," he concluded.