Debate contribution: Anna Lo
Debate contribution by Mr Phillip Brett on .
- MLA
- Mr Phillip Brett
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 11 November 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Assembly Business
- Heading
- Anna Lo
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4667043
Read the official Assembly record
Text
My thoughts are with those who knew Anna Lo and those who loved her. I had only one interaction with her, and that was in this place. I was a politics student at Belfast Royal Academy in 2009. Our class was very diverse, and we could not agree on a single thing. Our teacher, trying to get us to agree and not argue with us, decided that it would be a good idea to come up with a dream team, including who we could agree should be the First Minister. To a man and to a woman in that class, everyone agreed that that person should be Anna Lo. We came on our visit to Stormont and we had made signs to say "Anna Lo for First Minister".
We arrived here and Anna was not in the Building. Instead of devoting her time to her constituency office in South Belfast, she drove from her office to Stormont. There was nothing for Anna to gain in doing that — we were all from North Belfast — but she knew the importance of ensuring that young people were interested in politics. She sat with us for 90 minutes. Her office staff were telling her that she had other engagements, but the people in that room were the most important to her that day. She taught us one thing, and that was that we need to learn to disagree well. Whilst we may have different political views and aspirations, our job as politicians is to serve the collective interests of the people whom we are honoured to represent. That day, Anna Lo, probably unintentionally, had an impact on me. Our job, as public representatives, is to devote our lives, day and daily, to making the work of this place deliver for the most vulnerable in our society. I am very sorry that I never got to sit in this place or work with Anna Lo, but her legacy lives on. Let it be her epitaph that people in this Chamber learn to disagree well.
341 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.99).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.04 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.01 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.01 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.02 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.99 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.01 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.45 |
| Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism | 0.15 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.15 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.09 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.07 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:32 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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