Northern Ireland Humanists pay tribute to humanist trailblazer Anna Lo

Northern Ireland Humanists and humanists around the UK have expressed their sadness following the death of former MLA Anna Lo, who was the most high-profile humanist MLA in Northern Ireland.

A humanist and supporter of Northern Ireland Humanists, Anna was a trailblazing member of the Northern Ireland Assembly who broke new ground as the first Chinese parliamentarian in UK history.

She served as Alliance Party MLA for Belfast South from 2007 until 2016, when she was forced to stand down due to a pattern of targeted racial abuse from Ulster unionists. She lived with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.

Northern Ireland Humanists Coordinator Boyd Sleator, who worked with her on a number of humanist issues, including the successful campaign to decriminalise abortion, paid tribute to Anna by saying:

‘Anna was an amazing woman who we worked closely with over the years. She exemplified humanist values. She was a critical thinker, her politics was led by evidence and data, and she was filled with empathy and warmth for her fellow human beings.

‘We are going to miss Anna dearly. We already do. She was a serious force for good in our society who overcame significant challenges in her personal life, but remained focused on her goal of bettering people’s lives. She is someone I look up to and a role model for Northern Ireland’s politicians now and in the years to come.’

Alliance Party leader Naomi Long MLA paid tribute by saying:

‘Anna was not a religious person. As a humanist, she believed in the goodness of people and their ability to transcend division. She exemplified that, every day of her life. Good things do, indeed, come in small packages, and Anna Lo was the best of us. She was my friend: warm, witty, funny, fierce, courageous and kind. I will miss her enormously, but she will live on in her legacy and in the hearts of all those whom she touched with her kindness.’

Anna helped to launch Northern Ireland Humanists at its official launch event in 2016, and attended many of the charity’s brunch socials, rallies, events, and activities alongside the NI Interfaith Forum. She was courageous in identifying publicly as non-religious even in Northern Ireland’s religiously charged political arena. For example, in 2015, she was the only MLA out of seven non-religious MLAs identified by the BBC who was willing to be publicly identified as non-religious and interviewed on that basis.

She was someone who believed in the future of Northern Ireland as a cosmopolitan, egalitarian society where public policy is based on evidence, human rights, and democratic consensus, and where religion does not divide people into political and social tribes. 

In her own words, Anna said:

‘I think in Northern Ireland so many of our politicians use their faith as almost an attraction for voters… What I want to see is policy-making based on evidence – scientific evidence, medical evidence, social science evidence – and not the Bible.’