ATTEMPTS to force Labour to stand candidates in Northern Ireland appeared to have failed after the eight people standing for a Labour breakaway group gained fewer than 1,600 first preference votes.
The eight candidates had defied the Labour hierarchy to run under a Northern Ireland Labour Representation Committee (NILRC) banner.
The group is made up of Labour Party members in the north and has a clause in its constitution that it will disband once Labour begins contesting elections in the north.
However, it seems unlikely that Labour will break its tradition of supporting the SDLP - which informally takes the Labour whip in the Commons - after the NILRC polled poorly.
The eight candidates gained a total of just 1,577 votes by Friday night.
In East Belfast Erskine Holmes, who served as a Northern Ireland Labour Party councillor in Belfast in the 1970s, polled 78 first preference votes - just 0.21 per cent of the vote.
Committee leader, journalist and author Kathryn Johnston, polled 243 first preference votes in North Antrim - fewer than half the votes of Green candidate Jennifer Breslin.
The NILRC's best performing candidate, Damien Harris, polled 285 first preference votes in Fermanagh & South Tyrone.
