The question Ritchie and McGlone must answer: What is the SDLP for?
On Twitter last night Eamonn quoted Martin McGuinness’s quip that the SDLP and the UUs are now the grumpy parties. Certainly his own ‘firm’ has more politicians who pass the fabled beer test than perhaps any other party in Northern Ireland. But I am not sure I would describe the mood at the Slieve Donard last weekend as grumpy. It was, in fact, a party of two quite discernible camps and, by Sunday afternoon, they were both in quite different moods.There were 420 delegates, each of whom cast their votes on behalf of ten other members. I think I heard someone suggest that there were just five people who got away without voting. Unsurprising since they were being watched like hawks by both camps.
It was the party’s first open election, a rare event for any of Northern Ireland’s political parties. And in the case of the SDLP it may prove to have been a kill or cure event.
As well as energizing the party’s activists, it gave younger members jobs and a level of responsibility they would rarely get in the normal run of things. All before a general election in which they are likely to be on the defensive, getting people back on the front foot may prove the difference between getting their three MPs home safely, or not.
The cheers that greeted Margaret Ritchie were pretty ecstatic from those near the front of the hall. Amongst those towards the back the losing team, by contrast, were stunned and silent.
Ritchie’s winning margin was clear enough to be beyond dispute. But it was close enough to raise the possibility that the party’s strength might further diminish through pointless internal politicking over what are for the SDLP right now, utterly inconsequential matters.
In truth, the party is too small to sustain a split. Either a functional or dysfunctional one. The new leadership cannot afford to indulge in abstract differentiation over issues that in the short term have little bearing on the party’s future.
Their scope for further action is pretty limited. But future success depends on two things: winning people back from Sinn Fein; and energising their own stay at home base. Alan in Belfast noted the killer line in Alisdair McDonnell’s speech:
“We have drifted for too long, allowed ourselves to be taken for granted for too long and we have tolerated analysis and further analysis of analysis, in place of action for too long.”
The party’s broadcast from Friday night is a classic case of the nebulous and untranslated ‘overthink’ the party has indulged itself in during the last twelve years which has seen party support decline from 22% to 15% of the vote.
For all that this was a well organised, well managed conference it was, like last year, all about the past. Durkan’s speech was by many accounts the best of his career, but it had people asking why the hell wasn’t he still leading then? It also had the effect of showing up the limitations of the leading contenders.
And most importantly, it robbed Ritchie of the opportunity put what the new SDLP might stand for into the brightly lit, media friendly shop window of the conference. Instead, it raises questions of whether in fact this is a new leadership.
Subsequent events like the manhandling of the party’s first female leader up the stairs at Stormont by her own special advisor on Monday do nothing to subdue such speculation, no matter however unfounded it might be. Margaret must find a way to articulate her own voice beyond those of her no doubt well intentioned advisors and coaches.
So far as I could tell, much of the resentment on the McDonnell side related to the exclusion of their man as Durkan’s deputy. As a Derry Belfast partnership it was as dysfunctional as the relationship between McGuinness and Adams has been a success. That’s a plenary indulgence no party can sustain: least of all one as small and down on its luck as the SDLP.
In Margaret Ritchie and Patsy McGlone, the leadership has passed to two rural politicians, both of whom are much less well known to the party than any of their predecessors: much as you might expect of any party in serious long term decline. Much will depend on their ability to put together a credible fight back.
Ritchie has a good name with unionists for her efforts at outreach and reputation for not shirking a fight, even with the odds stacked against her. McGlone’s inaugural speech as deputy showed a grasp of the need for the kind of simple and positivist narrative which the party desperately needs.
Durkan’s six month long procession into retirement now leaves the new team only a few short months to prepare an agreed message for an April or May Westminster election. After the party conference there are few predictable opportunities for the party to grab the media’s attention in the next few months. Realistically, the Assembly elections next year will be their first big test.
Between now and then, they must keep it simple and talk some honest sense. John Hume, with his single transferable speeches, was a past master of a skill that almost completely deserted his successor.
Although Nationalists generally may not like the way Sinn Fein is treated by unionists, there also is a degree of disgruntlement at the way Sinn Fein have been serially outwitted by the DUP. Three years after being frozen out of the St Andrews Agreement (by SF/DUP), the SDLP are now in a strong position to criticise SF’s abysmal record in Government.
Both factions of the party do agree on one thing. They have been far too nice to their opponents for too long. It remains to be seen whether the fragmentation of the Durkan years continues, or whether the party can coalesce under a renewed nationalist focus.
Above all, they must quit asking rhetorical questions about what the electorate want and provide instead a few coherent and consistent answers on why the SDLP still matters to ordinary people.
Mark Durkan was given a picture of the Craigavon bridge in Derry, which, he quipped on Sunday, was an ‘order’ from the party to go back to Foyle and stay there. That’s good advice. Without an immediate repair to those rapidly degrading internal bridges, the party may gradually disappear in two or three election cycles.
Over the next eighteen months, between them, Ritchie and McGlone have a chance to shape a viable future for the party by making a dignified but focused appeal to the enlightened self interest of the nationalist electorate.
In that task they don’t need any back seat drivers trying to grab the wheel and insisting on taking them back down that obscure bog road they’ve been stuck in for the last twelve years.
Yes, it’s a very different world now for the SDLP. Senator Kennedy accepted a knighthood from the Queen before he died, there’s no SDLP hotline to the USA any more, and there won’t even be an SDLP dFM in the White House on 17 March. Then there’s Europe.
I can understand those SDLP members who complain that when Adams & Co. at Hume’s behest beat their swords into ploughshares, the first thing they did was plough the SDLP into the ground.
It’ll be hard for Margaret Ritchie. If you’re going to make a dent in the opposition, you need to have an identity of your own. The SDLP troops are still there, and willing to fight, but they’ll need good generalship from now on.
They need to get McGlone out into the spotlight more and more to create a series of consistent talking points that the public and press can latch onto. And at the same time, they need to reign in some of the existing spokesmen (mostly male) so that they stop firing in all directions.
For Margaret Ritchie doing the same things better isn’t going to work. If the SDLP disappeared tomorrow its place in history is assured and it has certainly done the people some service. But what now is the question.
It has flirted with FF, thought about the UU but I think it should look at Sinn Fein. Implementing the agreement and representing nationalists is what both parties do. Why not merge? Sinn Fein need to be dragged towards respectability and the SDLP need to be dragged toward relevance. Each has what the other needs.
To (slightly)paraphrase Michael Henchard at the end of ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’:
“That the electorate of Northern Ireland be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. “& that I be not bury’d in consecrated ground. “& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. “& that nobody is wished to see my dead body. “& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral. “& that no flours be planted on my grave, “& that no man remember me. “To this I put my name.
when Adams & Co. at Hume’s behest beat their swords into ploughshares, the first thing they did was plough the SDLP into the ground.
Brilliant, David.
“when Adams & Co. at Hume’s behest beat their swords into ploughshares”
I thought Hume was a mere hanger-on in the so called peace process, David. The Redemptorists and the British and Irish establishments will IMO have been far more important.
Henry,
If *this* doesn’t work, I can’t see many other ways.
But that contains real challenges for SF’s current rigid system of democratic centralism. The kind of people they need to achieve that (careerists in the insider parlance), won’t touch them as things stand.
Nationalism needs to set up cluster of ‘good behaviour’ to show its efficacy.
Mick, SF got to where it is on the back of bad behaviour and with the acquiescence of London and Dublin; goodness didn’t come into it, the good nationalists lost.
I did think it rather odd that the the outgoing leader was allowed to steal so much of the limelight, espically so close to an election, the new leader needs all the publicity she can get.
Mick,
“Nationalism needs to set up cluster of ‘good behaviour’ to show its efficacy. ”
eh? speak english boy!
Yes, Nevin: as the old Chinese proverb says, ‘Nothing in Derry is ever what it seems to be.’ When a man has grown old, he may be tempted by the prospect of a well-defined place in history: and while believing himself to be the principal agent of change, he may in fact be acting as the agent of principals who are much more subtle than himself.
Its odd that the SDLP with its track record of advocating PEACE provokes such negative reaction. Cue the usual SF bloggers with their hilarious “stoops” jibe. cue DUP types who complain that SDLP brought SF into the process. Cue UUP types who complain about sectarian SDLP. Cue the ragbag assembly of “socialists” who want a link up with the Labour Party.
And even cue the alliance types who never actually advocated change from the days of the New Ulster Movement but only ever took up positions on quangos with David Ford about to get the juiciest quango of all.
Cue accusations that I am a “stoop” (a juvenile playground word).
Really if Mick Fealty asks the question wht is the SLp for?…it shows a blind disregard for their proven track record.
Of course a more balanced question would be where does the SDLP go next. But typically the chosen question is taunting rather than a search for information.
The biggest problem is the “quality” of the public representation.pale shadows of the original eight (6 Stormont MPs and 2 senators) who were the original men (it was always men in early 1970s).
A look at the 16 MLAs is not impressive.
1 Ritchie…..a leader……lightweight
2 McGlone…..deputy……under rated.
3 Durkan……semi retirement who presided over Humes legacy
4 McDonnell…..diminished by failure and likely to lose South Belfast
5 Magennis…semi detached and I suspect one eye on Chief Justice but happily back in front line as Justice nominee.
6 Attwood traduced by SF in West Belfast
7 O’Loan hopefully able to step up to higher profile now that his wife is lower profile
8, 9, 10, 11
Dallat, Gallagher, Mary Bradley, Ramsey……party veterans and constituency types
12 Pj Bradley…..er who?
13 Dolores Kelly……nice but no Brid Rogers
14 Conall McDevitt…..oh look hes young!
15 Tommy Burns…..the man the party did not want in South Antrim (have the wounds healed)
16 Dominic Bradley…..they didnt see him as front runner in Newry Armagh.
Theyve lost Hume, Mallon, Rogers,Lewsley Carmel hanna and Denis Haughey and SHOULD have lost McGrady a selfish and pro Ritchie move to stay on. I bet the McDonnell camp loves him.
And they couldnt get N McClellnad, Marietta Farrell and Ms Haughey elected.
A Middle Class Party.It did not learn the lessons of history.it Could re buld , but it would need to root out it Middle Class, They stink
You have it the wrong way round Robert, they do seem to be a middle class party, so stop pretending they arent and be happy as a middle class nationalist party.
Although Nationalists generally may not like the way Sinn Fein is treated by unionists, there also is a degree of disgruntlement at the way Sinn Fein have been serially outwitted by the DUP. Three years after being frozen out of the St Andrews Agreement (by SF/DUP), the SDLP are now in a strong position to criticise SF’s abysmal record in Government.
Mick
Good points.
The SDLP have taken a major step backwards this weekend. They’ve chosen the wrong leader to get them back on the road to relevance, and the party could quickly become mired in a poisonous bout of internal feuding as post-election disgruntlement with Ritchie’s lack of leadership skills begins to hit home.
Meanwhile, the realisation that the SDLP will continue to pose no threat to Sinn Fein for the forseeable future will only discourage republicans from taking the bold and radical measures necessary to transform Sinn Fein into a party fit for purpose in the new era.
I’m afraid it’s been a bad weekend for Irish nationalist politics.
Mick
But that contains real challenges for SF’s current rigid system of democratic centralism.
Absolutely. Democratic centralism must die.
Mick, You’re right, we got no answer to the killer question. I dipped into the BBC videostream and was pretty horrified. McGuinness was kind. Instead of ” grumpy” he might have called them “whingeing” which is nastier but truer. McDonnell and Ritchie were asked the same questions in turn. McDonnell waffled on about wonderful members and telling the truth – but the truth about what, Alasdair? We weren’t told. The uncommitted voter had nothing to go on. He seemed exhausted.
Ritchie was a bit more substantial. But she sounded weak about the SDLP exclusion from the Justice portfolio and being asked to sort out the rest of the St Andrews agenda with Reg at the last minute. ” I only learned about it this morning” is a poor line from a would-be party leader. Her complaint that SF was excluding “fellow nationalists” from Justice was woefully sectarian and conceded SF’s supremacy.
The SDLP will never break through by playing mini-me to SF. The only available direction is to go seriously cross community, social democratic, building tactical alliances and seeking policy agreements, while fleshing out a more widely appealing vision of an Agreed Ireland than the dubious calculations of SF’s numbers game.
To start with last week, why didn’t Ritchie turn the negatives she complained of at Hillsborough into positives? Insist on standing for Justice with an impeccable cross community, fair minded appeal and a detailed penal policy fleshed out by Alex Attwood and others? On the St Andrews agenda, reiterate a HR policy and develop the “process” on the language, removing the republican brand and specifically drawing on Welsh parallels to parry unionist objections? Pobal and Maurice Hayes would be only too happy to oblige with a brief if the SDLP still needs one at this advanced stage.
Indeed, Mark was full of policy – too full – and that has always been both his strength and his weakness. He never could weave the list into a convincing strategy. Perhaps he feels he can’t afford to admit he flourishes in the wider Westminster agenda of pensions and welfare, the wider economy and foreign affairs for fear of being jeered at as a latter day John Redmond or Uncle Tom.
Can Ritchie focus up and lead? Others will better judge her natural authority with colleagues. Whether by accident or not I don’t know, but she revealed the glimmer of a strategy when she touched on a shared future.
“Shared future” versus SF’s “Separate but Equal” is a dividing line that could be built on. Treat it as the litmus test for your whole approach and see what you come up with.
A shared future doesn’t mean just pleasing Prods. Try applying to breaking the 11 plus deadlock for instance. The political deadlock is unionist v nationalist but the real life problem is rebellion by grammar schools across the divide and the total impotence of the Assembly. The situation is made for the techniques of modern government, a cross community initiative involving local options, planning transparency and consultation, bipartisanship in the Assembly and importing structural ideas, probably from England.
Applying a shared future test to the full range of policy and politics could get the SDLP somewhere. But is there any sign of it?
It will be horrific TV to watch when Margaret is faced with live tv audiences and other party leaders. Who wants to bet that she doesn’t do them and lets Durkan or McDonnell in.
Mick’s comment ‘SF’s current rigid system of democratic centralism’ illustrates precisely why the SDLP with its present custom and practice will never be acceptable to to the SF ranks, as Henry94 advocated above. From its inception the SDLP have always operated as a party in name only. Its Westminster MPs behaved as if they each had their own feifdom. Fitt was a loose cannon, Hume a 32 county republican, McGrady a McGrady loyalist and Mallon was perceived as a Fine Gael partitionist.
While constitutionally it declared itself to be an Irish Nationalist/Republican party, very little, if any, lip service was given to this aspiration – except, one time, when McGrady’s seat was threatened by boundary changs, he ‘wrapped the green flag round’ him – as did Alastair McDonnell in a recent unusual display of nationalism. The party therefore never did speak with one voice and although the former leaders could give voice to whatever was in their mind at the time, any central policy was more or less ignored by the other MPs who just got on with tending their own furrows.
Why then would such a strictly controlled party as SF, almost Stalin-like in its centrally driven objectives, admit, as it were, a shoal of freestyle swimmers who only occasionally stick to the referee’s rules by staying in their lanes? And, alternatively, would SDLP MPs and MLAs be happy to put their salaries and expenses into a central fund to be doled out at the whim of a central treasurer?
While I realise that ‘never’ is a word never (!) to be used in politics, I really think that a merger of this sort is pure fantasy. The question therefore remains valid, ‘What is the SDLP for?’ I’m fkd if I know.
But I do know that the present setup of a DUP/SF oligarchy badly needs an effective opposition,
Typically Mr Walker believes using a phrase like “fellow nationalists” is woefully sectarian.But being a unionist I suppose isnt sectarian.
I understand Mr Walker is a unionist.
Chris,
Bang on. I know people think I was raving, but the split character of unionism at the moment is an indication of healthy engagement. The opposite is the case in nationalism.
Brian,
That is just one possible point of departure. The ‘good behaviour’ point I was making relates to competent handling of policy as much as anything relating to the sectarian divide.
Henry,
On your UU point, the truth is this: Unionist and Nationalist politicians are compelled to work together. It’s a case of whether you plan for government before you go in, or after. Or indeed whether you are committed to doing politics or using the good offices of the old colonial master to manage your poor relationships for you, or you do it yourself.
The SDLP have taken a major step backwards this weekend. They’ve chosen the wrong leader to get them back on the road to relevance,
I firmly believe that other factors are at play in the SDLP. Do they know something that the other parties don’t know, per chance?
In any case, how can any reasonable person vote Sinn Fein if they realise that the only thing that lies ahead is a Bosnia with a repartioned North emerging?
The SDLP are an honest party designed for its own objectives, not Sinn Fein’s war in politics. The SDLP is doing well at the moment with all parties trying to be social democratic consensus builders rather than live up to their manifesto billings as nation builders or destroyers or whatever.
Banjaxed
Why then would such a strictly controlled party as SF, almost Stalin-like in its centrally driven objectives, admit, as it were, a shoal of freestyle swimmers who only occasionally stick to the referee’s rules by staying in their lanes? And, alternatively, would SDLP MPs and MLAs be happy to put their salaries and expenses into a central fund to be doled out at the whim of a central treasurer?
Because both models are badly flawed. Unity talks would allow each party to ditch some of its baggage and create a 32 county democratic party run from the bottom up. Sinn Fein has a big problem in the south. It has hit the ceiling previously hit by the Worker’s Party. That’s as far as you can get with Democratic Centralism which stifles the talented.
The SDLP has a big problem in the north as nobody see a future for them of knows what the point of them is. If we stay on our present course the SDLP will fade away in the north and Sinn Fein will fade away in the south.
Brian,
In fact I would not blame either Alisdair or Margaret to much for that obvious lack of an answer for that. This was Durkan’s hand over gig, not a ‘hail the succession’ gig.
Actually on the point of telling the truth, I think telling the truth about almost anything would be a good start.
- Truth about the need for education reform.
- Truth that political unification with the south is uncertain, but can only be brought about by strong leadership and hard work.
- Truth that in many non constitutional respects, Catholics and Protestants have enough in common for a broad range of actions.
And so on. I suspect people would react better than people expect to something approximating what they themselves understand to be the truth.
It’s my view too that they have simply become too detached from the concerns of real people. The answer to the question what is the SDLP for should not be worked up to fit those concerns, but if the party cannot find some functional response from within its own character then it is as good as gone already.
I agree with Brian Walker’s assessment. There is only way to win a game and that’s by winning. Not like against SF.
There are however, 2 ways of not losing.
1- By not playing at all. This is not an option however.
2 – Playing a different game. SDLP will never overtake SF. Like the board game Risk, once your star is one the decline, there is only a long slow death awaiting as you see your opponents slowly and cruelly, chomp at your territories.
The SDLP need to stop talking about a United Ireland. This only spooks Unionists and makes them flee to empty Unionist parties whose only policy is to keep the Union but dont have a vision on how to improve life within that Union.
The SDLP need to cut the nationalist talk and start helping making the NI state work functionally by officially denouncing nationalism as a main plank (or any plank for that matter) and talk to left leaning unionists and Alliance types to create a new Social Democratic Party.
Leave the executive and set up as Opposition and declare themselves as Non-Aligned.Such an NI-SDP could be a real non sectarian alternative to the Frankenstein Government we have at present.
This would give the DUP a lifeboat as the poison of the thought of voluntary coalition could now be excised once and for all.
The TUV would be outflanked and normal right/left politics could germinate. SF would be left in the cold. It would prove their mettle as democrats in NI if their adherence to non violence is only predicated on being in power.
As I said before, the idea of a united Ireland will only be entertained when the memories of blood and terror fade into history and when people want it because it would make social and economic sense. Until then, lets make NI work functionally but making it work as Irish men/women of the north-east of Ireland controlling as much of our affairs as possible.
Banjaxed is right that Nationalism needs TWO powerful parties and the balance at the moment SF are in the driving seat.
The problem they both have is that there dont like each other very much.
Both think it was “us wot won it”.
Try telling a SDLP person that they have to some extent benefitted from the violence and they get angry.
Try telling a SF person that they owe something to SDLP and they get angry.
Point is that nationalist people are where they are because of BOTH.
Even unionists know that. Not saying it is right or wrong.
And go to any postcard shop in Belfast and note the Bobby Sands mural that “Everyone Republican or othwise has their own part to play”
For the narrow calculation of political advance SDLP has to be more “green” targetting “soft” SF votes but also resisting the nonsense of the middle ground.
Those of us familiar with the 1960s will remember that nationalism/republicanism was marginalised and only partly constitutional. The political consensus has moved.
Those calling themselves moderate unionists or non-sectarian unionists had their chance…Phelim O’Neill, Basil McIvor, Ann Dickson, Richard Ferguson, Robin Bailey have all come and gone.
The SDLP need to stop talking about a United Ireland. This only spooks Unionists and makes them flee to empty Unionist parties whose only policy is to keep the Union but dont have a vision on how to improve life within that Union.
They flirted with post-nationalism before and it was not well received. Your plan involves abandoning their current support in compete with the Alliance party.
FitzJames
Nationalism needs TWO powerful parties
It may have when they had very different approaches. But why now?
Henry94
If we stay on our present course the SDLP will fade away in the north and Sinn Fein will fade away in the south.
This would suit most SDLP people, I’m sure. The thought of saving the south from Sinn Fein is paramount in the minds of true lovers of Ireland. I can assure you that there will never be a union of Sinn Fein and the SDLP. There is too much baggage and too much distrust.
The difference between the SDLP and Sinn Fein is the difference between the New and Old Testaments, between going forward and going back, between idealism and political muscle.
Mr O’Connell,
my point and possibly Henrys would be that nationalism benefitted from idealism and political muscle (although perhaps “political muscle” is a euphenism)
Fitz
I never ride two horses, only one white one.
Nationalism, like the Bible, has a good side and an evil side, and really we need to choose the good side, as we are doing increasingly, in order to arrive at peace.
Nationalism needs TWO powerful parties
It may have when they had very different approaches. But why now?
Because a) the electorate need a choice, and b) the politicians need to know fear. The old Stormont system where there was essentially one Unionist party and one Nationalist party meant that all politicians needed to do to get re-elected was wrap themselves in the appropriate flag. The current system of parallel elections, one Unionist and one Nationalist, is at least a small improvement. Going back to Unionist unity and Nationalist unity is just that: going back.
how about we merge the UUP, SDLP, & Alliance, park the border issue for now, contest an election or two and then split the party into a centre left and centre right pary, the Left can have some ties with New Labour and FF, and the right with the Tories and FG, perfect eh? dont know why no-one has thought of this before, lol.
Spot on with your point b). Not paralysing fear, just enough to keep them on their toes and innovative.
One of the most worrying things about this settlement is the reduction of people outside the system to the term ‘dissident’. A term most associated with the Soviet era.
Opposition is good. The system needs a genuine alternative if it is not to choke on its own inconsistencies.
You have it the wrong way round Robert, they do seem to be a middle class party, so stop pretending they arent and be happy as a middle class nationalist party.
Posted by Drumlins Rock
Drumlins,
Your correct in that the SDLP was once a party of the nationalist middle class, but their problem today is that part of the electorate historically does not cling to the centre ground as some ‘nice’ middle class people like to pretend, what they cling to is a winner.
We witnessed that in England with their support for Thatcher and then Blair, or going back even further the middle class support Hitlers nazi party received which enabled them to gain power. In all three examples a sizeable section of the middle class moved from support for one party to what they correctly perceived as a stronger party, which was more likely to win power.
The same has happened in the north where a section of the unionist middle class migration from the UU to the DUP, incidentally GD typifies just how opportunist this class is politically.
I see no reason why at this time the nationalist middle classes will move from SF to the SDLP, so long as the shiners continue to cry up the PSNI, tout on a friend.
Henry
With the SDLP on the ropes in the north and a nonentity in the south, I cannot see any reason why SF would wish to get into bed with them, what could they bring to the table which SF cannot take from them for free?
Mickhall
With the SDLP on the ropes in the north and a nonentity in the south, I cannot see any reason why SF would wish to get into bed with them, what could they bring to the table which SF cannot take from them for free?
That is the most likely outcome in the north but SF’s big problem is in the south. They need to demonstrate an ability to move beyond their traditional base and start to challenge Fianna Fail. Embracing the SDLP in the north would go down very well in the south.
Mick
One of the most worrying things about this settlement is the reduction of people outside the system to the term ‘dissident’. A term most associated with the Soviet era.
The dissidents in the Soviet Union were heros and I agree it is a shame to see a nobel word associated with ignoble deeds. But the TUV are not called dissidents. They have taken the path of legitimate political opposition. There is nothing to stop people on the nationalist side taking the same approach.
Neither are people like Anthony McIntyre. The attempt to delegitimise discontent goes more broadly than paramilitaries.
Their problem, as pointed out by Gerry Fitt, is that they are a nationalist party rather than a social democratic party. They came into existence to offer nationalists an alternative to
IRA voilence and now that that violence has stopped the party has become anachronistic. The most basic market research will tell them that there is no way back in their current guise.
Their only hope is to become a true social democratic party, with little emphasis being put on the Catholic and border issues.
One suspects, however, that a leopard cannot change its spots.
Mick, You’re o right about truth telling. But poor Alasdair never spelt anything out. If he had made a cathartic speech with your list of truths, might he have won? He would have deserved to. The fact that he didn’t means he himself fudged the truth.
Ther fact is, generalised talk about political positioning can only go so far. These NI parties are looking up the wrong end of the telescope.
They would find it a relief to get down to the specifics of tangible spending priorities and real problem solving. Very soon, there’ll be less British money to spend.
Right now,they are trying to establish “community confidence” – perhaps not entirely cynically – on the totemic issues first. This can only increase suspicion and distrust. Each main party feels it is owed by its opposite number. But if they concentrated on programme for govenment issues using problem-solving techniques as described, a platform could be built on which to base community confidence. The evidence suggests the public ( remember them?) might even be appreciative. If they fail do that, we can all see fresh deal breakers within a year – 50:50, the collapse of any Justice deal when the present interim deal runs out and a battle for a
” voluntary coalition” after next year’s election.
What keeps them at it in this mode? The fact that they pay no electoral penalty for normal governmental failure. Sadly, communal political warfare is still their comfort zone. At Hillsborough were they losing sleep over failing to agree or from fear of being denounced by theuir own cohorts? To govern in the public interest, we are forced to rely on their sense of civic respobibility.
I think that’s a useful perspective Brian and I have no clear answer either. Other than pointing again at McGlone’s speech, who unlike the other two knew he was going to be Deputy leader at the end of the conference. It was a little long, but it had some good passages:
“…we are seeing the failed violence of the past turning into a failed politics for the future.
“Threatening the stability of the Assembly threatens people’s TRUST in politics working. That approach will not deliver a united future regardless of the shape of the institutions.
“Our future is together. Because a separate future is not a just and equal future.
“When I listen to people on the street, or in shops, they may have a brief chat or a yarn about the latest standoff between Sinn fein and the DUP, but you can see when the issue they are talking about really matters to them.
“When we talk about the bread and butter issues they are our roads, your houses, your son or daughters planning applications, your kids education issues, your parents problems with health treatment, your families social security benefits. It is the need for each and every one of us to know that from dawn to dusk our families and friends are safe.”
heres a touching naive aspect about unionism (which its adherents believe is not sectarian but nationalism is) that in (I believe) Terence O’Neills words “give a Catholic a house and a job and he becomes a unionist”.
To the chagrin of unionists it doesnt actually work like that. All the way to the SDLP Conference or the Deputy First Ministers Office.
DrumlinRocks suggestion that “We” merge the SDLP UUP and AP…..does not seem to be something in “our” gift”.
Its something the three Parties would have to do.
But SDLP dont actually want that.
Which is a pity for “us”….apparently
we need to choose the good side, as we are doing increasingly
John,
Do you have any evidence for that or are you just indulging in wishful thinking?
Joe
There is evidence in the nature of consensus building politics rather than in the confrontational politics of the past. But you’re right. Some of it might just be down to wishful thinking because we’re dealing with SF and DUP.
Any party that cannot rid itself of its religious and nationalistic/unionist cloak, but yet talks in terms of inclusiveness is mired in a cloud of ideological schizophrenia.
Scaramoosh,
Hard to argue with that. So, if you don’t want to be part of that you are left in N.I. only with support for the Alliance Party?
While the SDLP does not, these days, receive as many votes as SF, talk of its demise is mere piffle. 2004 Euro elections 15.9%, 2009 16.2%. No sign of a drop whatsoever: in fact a slight rise.
What also helps is that the SDLP attracts 2nd preference votes: SF does not, except perhaps a number from the Green Party. So the SDLP wins seats where SF would fail, abysmally. 2 of the 3 types of election in NI are PR, and even in the third, Westminster elections, the SDLP has done quite well. It has not been wiped out in the way the UUP was by the DUP.
The SDLP need to stop talking about a United Ireland.
Like it needs a hole in the head. Seems like a good way to lose all your Nationalist voters while not gaining a single Unionist 1st pref vote.
The SDLP’s platform, and one that has proved moderately successful for them, is 1) We are in favour of a United Ireland 2) We are not in favour of using violence to achieve this aim.
Since the time SF disassociated itself from the use of violence clause 2) is not as powerful as it used to be. I think the philosophy now is more on the lines of “We are against violence and we were thus even when this stance was neither popular not profitable.” This is rather resting on your laurels. It is also not entirely true, because there are elements from the Official IRA in the SDLP membership. As time progresses whether you stopped fighting in 1972 or 1994 isn’t really significant any more. A major part of the electorate weren’t born in 1972 and weren’t aware of what was happening in 1994.
what is sf, uup, dup, alliance ‘for’?
Paddy, the trend is downward. Cllr Martin Morgan and high profile MLA Alban Maguinness and a much more committed campaign account for a slight push upward in the percentage between those two years. The real damage is indicated by the 12.1% Morgan lost from Hume’s 1999 total.
Otherwise you are describing a persistent vegetative state rather than a viable passport into the future Paddy.
Andrew Gallagher
Spot on @ 5;33pm! Competition and a plurality of voices championing Irish unity is required.
Brian Walker & Marcionite
I don’t think pretending not to be an Irish nationalist is a winning strategy if one ultimately desires to attain the objective of Irish unity.
The suggestion that nationalists should be deviously scheming to promote Irish unity behind the scenes whilst publicly disavowing such intentions is a strategy I’d hope few would adopt as it is fundamentally dishonest.
No, what is required from any nominally Irish nationalist party- SF or SDLP- is a commitment to honestly pursue their aspirations for such unity whilst fulfilling their commitments to work the institutions agreed under the GFA.
Furthermore, the key for nationalist parties- and also unionist parties- will be to show in an open and upfront manner that their preferred constitutional vision articulated for the long term is one which can comfortably accomodate the various elements of the ‘other’ tradition (political, cultural, social etc.) something that obviously needs to be proved in the more immediate term to begin developing the trust and support to convince others to either actively support the Irish nationalist/ unionist vision, or at least be moved to a stance which is not overly concerned either way about the constitutional question.
That remains a formidable challenge for all parties, nationalist and unionist. The fact that the two nationalist parties have long since acknowledged that this will require meeting- and accepting- the unionist community for what it is actually puts them some distance ahead of the unionist bloc, which is just beginning to think about finding a place for ‘catholics,’ never mind taking the steps to accomodate Irish nationalists within their vision (and, Mick, that last point is why you remain ‘raving’ for considering the current messy state of intra-unionist discourse as healthy :> .)
“This is rather resting on your laurels. It is also not entirely true, because there are elements from the Official IRA in the SDLP membership”…Paddy Reilly
This is a very odd thing to say.
There is no difference between the SDLP and SF on the increasingly irrelevant constitutional issue, so the only differences are internal to NI and are relevant to snob politics and ‘sectarian’ division. I say ‘snob’ politics rather than (working) class politics because both parties are nominally on the left. And I say ‘nominally’ because SF supports a right-wing government program that the SDLP would never support. So, although SF is theoretically on the left, they are in practice on the right.
Why then would working class voters vote for a party that is implementing a right-wing agenda rather than vote for a party that remains closer to its socialist values? Probably because the SDLP are seen being on the side of the middle-class, and the working-class (or non-working benefit class) are very snobby towards social groups that are more successful than they are. I suppose the SDLP might be able to use Ritchie’s ‘ordinary’ persona to get across to those SF voters that they have voted for a party that is as close to being a socialist party as the Tories, and that if they actually have socialist beliefs then they should act accordingly and vote for a socialist party.
However, having several professionals in the party need not be an insurmountable obstacle, since they could always point out that while having no formal education might be good for one’s pseudo-socialist street cred it isn’t a help when it comes to affairs of state – or dealing with a canny operator like Peter Robinson. But then again, they tried the “we’re more able than they are” spiel and it didn’t work. But perhaps they can try it with more practical demonstrations and less implicit arrogance and obvious electioneering?
That just leaves the ‘sectarian’ issue. Folks are going to vote according to which party delivers the most for their tribe and impedes the delivery of the other tribe’s wish-list. Again, this is best delivered with subtle use of intellect but it can also be delivered by brute force, threats and belligerence. SF are seen to excel at the latter methods, so when the other tribe is seen as impeding the delivery of the other tribe’s wish-list, then the voters might feel that they need some thugs in there to put some manners on the other tribe. This is where it is hard to see how the ‘weak’ Ritchie could be seen by the voters as being able to do “brute force, threats and belligerence” better than the macho men in SF. She just can’t win there, alas. To be honest and at the risk of being called a sexist, I think they made a fatal mistake by appointing a woman in this context. NI politics is still very macho, and you have to know your market. At any rate, showing willingness to compromise is not good politics if the market doesn’t want that product.
Now it is not impossible in the long run that that the macho dynamic will become less important as internal political issues come to the fore, and that good ideas and good policies related to them will win over more voters if the SDLP can generate these and get media coverage for them. They need to come up with plenty of good ideas here that everybody irrespective of any division is concerned about – related to job creation, health care, education, etc. They should also get a USP that is not attainable to the competition, such as an alliance with The Labour Party in Ireland – they should not touch FF without a 90 mile bargepole and only then to prod them off a cliff.
But I really don’t have any faith in that party. If it was a company, I’d call in the liquidator. As Henry94 said, they should merge with the Shinners. Then you have dominant party and more united social group – plus, of course, the title of FM.
[i]This is a very odd thing to say.[/i]
I think Democratic Left members were instructed to join the SDLP in Northern Ireland and Labour in the Republic when the party folded. Whether any actually joined the SDLP is another question. There is a prominent councillor, though, who came from Official Republicanism. There must be a few more but I’m not aware of them.