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PUP won't contest poll

THE PUP has said that it will not contest next month's Westminster election.

The UVF-linked party, which has four representatives on the north's new super councils, said it wants to focus its efforts on next year's assembly elections. PUP leader and Belfast councillor Billy Hutchinson, pictured, said the party had planned to contest some seats but decided against doing so. Interest in whether the party ran or not was largely focused on North Belfast and East Belfast, where PUP candidates could have potentially taken valuable votes from respective DUP candidates Nigel Dodds and Gavin Robinson.

Mr Hutchinson said running successive local government, Westminster and Stormont election campaigns would have been too great a drain on the party's resources. "We feel that we would be better focusing all our resources on next year's Stormont elections where we have held a number of seats in the past and where we can better raise the issues affecting ordinary working-class people," he said. "We realise this will be a disappointment to our supporters but they can be sure we are doing this to make the biggest possible commitment to next year's elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly."