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. @lisburnccc is debating @allianceparty @dhoneyford's motion for council to stand in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatters.
. @dhoneyford warns racism could be a "second blight" on NI (sectarianism being the first).
Former mayor Alan Givan says BLM is Marxist and "anti-family": It doesn’t matter whether you're black, white or yellow or red or whatever ... and the quantity of melanin in our bodies has no bearing on how precious any individual is."
Sinn Féin's @RyanCarlin says Cllr Givan's comments were 'insulting': I’m somewhat in disbelief. All lives are not currently under threat ... that is why the slogan is important. We don’t need to say all lives matter. We understand that already.
UUP Cllr Hazel Legge has moved for the reference to BLM to be removed @dhoneyford's motion.
DUP's Caleb McCready says violence has "tarnished" BLM. He says his best friend is black, and recalls growing up in Papua New Guinea, and being a "buddy" for students from overseas when he went back to school in NI.
Alliance's Owen Gawith says he doesn't understand how the original wording could be a problem for any member. He says sectarianism "pales into insignificance compared to the amount of abuse suffered racially."
Still Ald Dillon: Why I cannot support BLM is to see the hatred in their faces, in their demonstrations, when they attack our national monuments, when they attack the statues of Queen Victoria who put the ‘Great’ into GB.
Ald Dillon again: 'What about the slaves who built the Colosseum in Rome? Have we not moved on a lot from then? Of course we have.' He's also brought up attacks on white farmers in Zimbabwe 'when the black people had control'.
DUP Cllr Nathan Anderson: We’re all one blood, doesn’t matter the tinge of your melanin. We are all precious and sacred made in God's image.
Cllr Anderson says #BlackLivesMatter 
has been "infiltrated by the extreme far left" and seeks to attack police.
has been "infiltrated by the extreme far left" and seeks to attack police.
. @smartin123 says some cllrs have put "their own spin on history', & says Cllr Anderson 'produced a litany of things that weren’t relevant. I respect your right to stand on principle, I don’t respect your right to come forward with a list of things that aren't relevant'.
Cllr Martin again: Some of the comments are very much along the lines of ‘we’re all hospitable so therefore it must all be alright’. We do not experience what they have experienced.
UUP's @StuartHughes12 says the meeting has become a farce ...
Cllr Hughes: I think most people are on the same page on this and instead we’ve just diluted any message we’ve sent this evening ...
I’m quite frankly rather depressed by what has happened.
I’m quite frankly rather depressed by what has happened.
DUP Cllr Jonathan Craig says #blacklivesmatter is associated with violence ... unlike his personal hero Martin Luther King Jr: 'Never once did he advocate or even allow violence to come into that movement'
Can I get a fact check?
is associated with violence ... unlike his personal hero Martin Luther King Jr: 'Never once did he advocate or even allow violence to come into that movement'Can I get a fact check?
Cllr Craig: 'It is being associated with attacks on police officers, police officers of all colours. Is there anyone in this chamber advocating that we should hang the police out to dry on the hearsay of others?
... It [racism] goes way beyond just black people and I’ve witnessed it firsthand.'
. @dhoneyford gets his chance to respond after a debate which has, at separate points, referenced abortion rights, Marxism, 'red lives', black friends, aunts, MELANIN, Rome ...
... white South African farmers, 'yellow lives', Martin Luther King Jr, Queens Victoria & Anne ...
He says: If you can’t agree with this it’s beyond belief. BLM is the concept - to remove that is to deny the problem, that somehow we know better how to frame people’s pain, and people's inequality, better than they do.
Honeyford on Ald Dillon: “I don’t know where to start with Ald Dillon”
We also reach back in time to a tweet by Cllr Honeyford, which Cllr Nathan Anderson has asked he apologise for. In 2017 Cllr H stood down from the Allianc Exec for an "anti-unionist tweet".
Cllr Honeyford: 'I won’t be taking any lessons for Cllr Anderson whose arrogance is outstanding … Racism is not what he wants to debate. It doesn’t suit.'
Councillors have voted in favour (26:14) for the amended motion, which takes out reference to BLM.
DUP Cllr Caleb McCready has withdrawn his own motion, which condemned the murder of George Floyd and proposed Lagan Valley be lit up in red in solidarity against racism. If carried, the motion would have also condemned BLM protestors for breaking Covid restrictions.
