Manx nationalist party Mec Vannin did not have a stall at Tynwald Day for the first time in 40 years.

The party pulled out after claiming organisers had given them the most obscure plot on the Fair Field - and insisting the event was no longer relevant.

Mec Vannin has had a stall every year at St John’s since the 1960s with visitors always assured of picking up a free sprig of bollan bane there for the island’s national day.

The party posted on Facebook that Tynwald Day had become ’less vibrant’ and attendance figures have ’noticeably dropped year on year’.

It said it received its stall allocation this year only to discover that the Tynwald arrangements committee had given it the ’most obscure plot on the entire field’.

When challenged, the committee denied this was a deliberate act, the nationalist party said.

Deputy Clerk of Tynwald Jonathan King said allocation of individual plots was handled by an officer in DoI. He said: ’The committee did not make any decisions relating to stall allocation this year and we are not aware of any challenge.’