The Green Party’s leader in Northern Ireland has vowed to call out others for failures in the region and make their voice heard.
Mal O’Hara described the environmental crisis in Lough Neagh, housing crisis, poverty and discrimination as among symptoms of too much of a focus by other parties on the constitutional question and identity politics.
The party is running 11 candidates in this General Election with a view to building their vote.
It comes after two challenging elections during which the Greens lost their two MLAs and dropped to five council seats.
Mr O’Hara, who became leader in 2022, said the party is back, with its highest membership in recent times, standing more candidates than it ever has in the region and offering voters a “unique policy platform saying things that other parties in Northern Ireland are not talking about”.
“We’ve had a change in personnel, a change in leader, change in deputy leader, and I think we have to be very clear in calling out people when they have failed Northern Ireland, whether that is Lough Neagh, the housing crisis, drug deaths, poor mental health, intergenerational trauma, poverty, discrimination,” he said.
“We get side tracked into the debate around the constitutional question and around identity politics rather than the bread and butter failures.
“We’re going to be the voice that calls that out and we are building to get back into the Assembly in 2027 and increase our council representation.”
Mr O’Hara urged against calls by other parties for tactical voting to keep others out, describing Northern Ireland as “stuck”, and likely to “continue the same shameful record on social and environmental justice”.
“Our candidates are something to vote for,” he added.
He was speaking at the launch of the party’s Greener, Fairer, Cleaner election manifesto at the Show Some Love Greenhouse centre in Belfast on Friday afternoon.
It calls for action to save the environment, to protect public services and the health service, a wealth tax and reform of Stormont.
Mr O’Hara described a manifesto he was exceptionally proud to stand over, despite a short time frame and limited resources to produce it.
“I think if you look at other parties with much much more resource, some of the richest parties on these islands, what they put out for a Westminster manifesto was frankly embarrassing,” he said.
He welcomed the expected demise of the Conservative Party government, describing “14 years of ideological austerity which harmed the poorest and most vulnerable”.
“They tried all the worst political tricks in the books to hold on. They exasperated division, they tried proxy culture wars targeting Trans people, they’re the authors of a hostile environment whipping up fear against people fleeing persecution and climate breakdown,” he said.
“We fully expect that Labour will form the next government, but everything we have seen and heard from Keir Starmer gives us little hope that they will be little more than diet Tory austerity.
“What we need across the UK is a strong group of Green left-wing MPs who will dare Labour to be braver.
“We’re different to other parties here, they are the parties of the constitutional conflict. We are not. We are part of a global pan-European movement. Unique in Northern Ireland, we are the only all-island cross-community party, and we have strong links with our sister parties across the UK.
“I’m hopeful that we see a strong group of Green MPs elected to the green benches of Westminster. For anyone in Northern Ireland that wants Labour to be braver, a vote for the Green Party clearly sends that message.”
Deputy leader Lesley Veronica added: “I think that this is an election for change and it feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience for so many people to be able to get out there and be really clear about what sort of society they want.”