A WAR of words has erupted within Nationalism in the Strangford constituency.

SDLP Assembly candidate Joe Boyle has accused his ex-party colleague Councillor Danny McCarthy - who stood in the Assembly Election as an Independent Nationalist - of deliberately blocking the attempt to return an SDLP member to Stormont.

Mr. McCarthy has vehemently denied the charge and said his candidature had been 'on a point of principle'.

The Independent Nationalist Councillor from Ards Borough had originally been selected to be the sole SDLP candidate to fight the Strangford constituency.

He resigned from the party when Mr. Joe Boyle was then appointed to be a second SDLP election hopeful on the ticket.

In the event, Joe Boyle went on to fight the election as his party's sole candidate but narrowly missed victory - losing out to the Alliance Party's Kieran McCarthy.

In the aftermath of the dramatic Assembly Election, Mr. Boyle has described Danny McCarthy's decision to stand as an independent 'an insult' to Nationalist voters and called on him to resign his seat on Ards Borough Council.

"Danny McCarthy's somewhat embarrassingly pathetic vote of 300 votes illustrates that no confidence in his ability has been clearly expressed from within the electorate.

"Therefore Councillor Danny McCarthy should, in the interest of the people, resign from his Council seat as his position is positively untenable.

"To have stood as a professed Nationalist with the sole intention of shoring up the vote for the UUP, the Alliance Party and incredibly the DUP, with the intention of denying representation to the community you proclaim to represent is abhorrent and simply unforgivable," the defeated SDLP candidate said.

Councillor McCarthy told the Democrat his candidature was on a point of principle and predicted a gloomy future for his old party in the Strangford constituency.

"The poor SDLP performance in Strangford should not be blamed on me - it should be blamed on party HQ.

"I am confident that if - as originally intended - I had been the only SDLP candidate on the election ticket I would have won an Assembly seat.

"As it stands, the future for the party looks grim and I would predict a probable increase in the Sinn Fein vote next time round.

"I represent the Nationalist voters who elected me to Ards Borough Council and I will fulfil my duties for as long as I enjoy that support.

"The SDLP designed their election strategy in Strangford, not me.

"I have not changed, but my old party has.

"I was always going to stand in this election on a point of principle.

"If the SDLP are looking for a scapegoat to blame for failure they should look at themselves and not at me," he said.