ARichTeaBiscuit continued her election campaign by addressing a small crowd of people inside a local park

“Hello there,

I am ARichTeaBiscuit and I am campaigning on behalf of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, so I would be quite pleased if you would give me the privilege of listening to what I have to say for a few minutes before choosing who you are going to vote for.

I grew up in quite a socially conservative area of the country, and such an arrangement meant that I felt quite uncomfortable expressing myself until I got to university and was able to move towards a more liberal part of the country, in fact I remember during my high school years a dear friend of mine was outed during the school year and received quite a considerable amount of bullying for the next few months.

I worked my hardest to try and protect them from the bullying that they received, however, at that time the framework just didn’t exist to properly talk to people about such events and the socially conservative make-up of the area meant that at the time at least most people didn’t really care about the abuse that went on or the homophobic language that was being utilised by students.

It is therefore quite depressing to know that we’ve seen an increase in hate crimes over the past few weeks, and while my colleagues and friends in the SDLP have worked to improve the situation in regards to equality legislation the simple fact remains that the different frameworks present in Northern Ireland just aren’t sufficient for the times that we live in and as we’ve seen don’t do enough.

I believe that such a mess underscores the importance a comprehensive Equality Bill, so that we at least share the same protections as implemented in the rest of Britain and that we should progress legislation on self-ID for transgender people, something that I hope will work towards reversing towards the depressing trend of hate crimes I mentioned earlier.

I regard my grandmother as one of the strongest women that I knew, a fierce independent woman that was a well-respected member of their local community through their work with the church and numerous charitable endeavours and via her work in the war that she wasn’t even allowed to talk about, yet I also now know that she was a victim of domestic abuse during one of her first marriage.

I am passionate about securing an increasing in funding to domestic violence support services, and a reversal to cuts that were made against legal aid during the time of austerity, as such services historically assist those suffering from domestic violence and a wider array of society that can be deterred from trying to secure justice by the sheer financial costs of trying to pursue a case.

At times it looks like we are working in a cruel and unjust society, however, by working together we can create a sustainable framework to create a better future for all communities in Northern Ireland and I am confident that the framework set-out by the SDLP is the best way of achieving that, so for a more just Northern Ireland go out and vote SDLP!”

ARichTeaBiscuit finished her remarks and proceeded to speak to members of the audience before moving onto her final event of the day.