A HARDLINE loyalist magazine with links to the UDA has said unionists should play the "numbers game" by voting tactically for the SDLP to keep out Sinn Féin.

An editorial in the December issue of The Loyalist, produced by the Ulster Political Research Group, states: "We need the SDLP to flourish (to a certain extent) to waylay the inexorable rise of the Sinn Féin machine."

The magazine said unionist votes would always help unionist candidates, but in constituencies with a nationalist majority tactical voting should be considered.

"SDLP votes can also assist unionism by mitigating the power of Sinn Féin votes in predominantly CNR (Catholic Nationalist Republican) communities."

Voters are set to go to the polls again next May for assembly elections, with fears expressed by some unionists at the possibility of Sinn Fein emerging as the largest party and claiming the post of First Minister.

Responding to the article, Sinn Féin claimed UDA support for the SDLP in elections is nothing new.

"The UDA have backed SDLP candidates in a number of constituencies right across the north over many decades in an effort to keep Sinn Féin out. They did so even during the worst days of the conflict when the loyalist group was targeting hundreds of nationalist civilians for assassination,'' it said.

"The UDA failed to halt the growth in support for Sinn Féin then and they will fail now as Sinn Féin looks to build on our mandate as the largest political party in Ireland in elections north and south next year."

SDLP assembly member John Dallat, who has in the past been threatened by loyalist paramilitaries, said there would be "no advantage" to loyalism in voting tactically for his party.

"The SDLP have been unequivocal in their determination to find out the truth about paramilitary activity and the past, and that includes the truth about loyalist paramilitary killings carried out in collusion with state forces," he said.

"And so there would be no advantage to those linked to loyalist paramilitarism in voting for the SDLP given our determination to pursue justice for victims and survivors and seek the whole truth, a large part of that includes the pursuit of people who now proclaim to be democrats."