How did I end up here?

Standing in the sunshine outside the MAC in Belfast last Thursday morning, I had a few butterflies in my stomach. I had an SDLP lanyard around my neck, and I was attending my first political conference.

It felt slightly surreal because last November, I had asked and answered this question:

So why don’t I just get on with it and join the SDLP? Because…it’s still about crossing a cultural line and stepping into a space that can make you feel like an outsider.

After I published that piece, something began to nag at me. Had I actually tested that assumption?

I sent the SDLP a message through their website and, a few days later, to my surprise, received an email inviting me to meet Claire Hanna for coffee. Over time, I came to trust the sincerity of the SDLP’s approach. Claire seemed comfortable with nuance and complexity, and I never felt like an outsider.

And so, after a couple of months of involvement, I decided to join the party.

The conference was my first opportunity to see how the SDLP approached a major conversation about the future of these islands.

It was important to me that unionist and loyalist voices were present, and not just as “converts”. I wanted to hear from people who are still unionists, and who could speak honestly from within that tradition, including the concerns many others in their community might have about constitutional change. For me, it’s not really an exploratory conversation if the people who may feel they have the most to lose are largely missing.

I also think it’s crucial to have people who are comfortable in their unionist identity and confident enough to speak their mind without feeling they first have to apologise for it. Otherwise there’s a danger the discussion becomes an echo chamber, made up of people who already think similarly. This also affects how the conversation is perceived by those outside it, who inevitably judge it by who is, and isn’t, around the table.

There was a warm response when ex UUP councillor and former PSNI officer Linzi McLaren described herself as a proud member of the “Happy Lundy” and “Ulster Says Yes” camps.

Former Independent Senator Ian Marshall, a unionist elected to Seanad Éireann, said that if unionists are invited to the table, they are less likely to say yes if they feel they are also on the table. He also observed that a good car salesman doesn’t spend their time explaining everything that is wrong with your old car. They persuade you by showing you why the new one is worth buying.

I believe that if we shrug our shoulders and accept that many unionists won’t attend conversations like this, then we are also settling for a poorer conversation. Understanding why they stay away, and what might make attendance possible, is part of the hard work of building a genuinely plural conversation about the future of these islands.

Joel Keys made what was, for me, one of the most important contributions of the day. He spoke candidly about trust. He said he believed the SDLP’s intentions in inviting him to the conference were genuine, while recognising that many other unionists would have real concerns about those intentions.

He described how someone had listed all the terrible things loyalism had done during the Troubles on his X page. It was, he said, like slapping a whale down in front of someone and telling them to eat it before anything else could be talked about. He acknowledged both sides do this, but it really blocks any progression to meaningful dialogue. Peace, he argued, is built by building enough trust for people to look each other in the eye and talk honestly about the things that divide us.

I believe that too often, conversations about the future begin with an argument about the past. Before anyone can discuss where we might be going, they’re expected to first answer for the worst chapters of their own tradition. The response is almost always the same. Someone reaches for the IRA, someone else reaches for loyalist paramilitaries, and within minutes the conversation has been dragged back into territory everyone already knows. The meaningful conversation about the future doesn’t even get started.

Former Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford offered a perspective I had never really considered, describing his concern not that Wales might leave the UK, but that the UK might leave Wales behind, as a “progressive pimple” attached to an England potentially led by right-wing Reform-type politics.

Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan outlined the need for governments to prepare their voters for the possibility of constitutional change, as events could unfold quickly and with little warning. Brexit was mentioned more than once, as a reminder of the consequences of poor preparation. Whatever anyone’s constitutional preference, planning and preparing for possible futures is good government. The SDLP has called for the establishment of a Ministry for a New Ireland in Dublin.

Orna Young from FactCheckNI focused on information integrity during referendums and other major democratic processes. She emphasised the need for critical thinking, transparency and accurate information, but also reminded us that fact-checking alone is not a silver bullet. Trust has to be earned, and rehumanisation matters too.

The conference was ambitious. It brought together people from across Britain and Ireland, from different political traditions and with very different perspectives on constitutional change. Conor Murphy of Sinn Féin was on one of the panels, and Gerry Adams was in the audience. I was glad I didn’t spot him, but that isn’t a criticism of anyone’s right to be there. Rather, it illustrates one of the real challenges of creating a genuinely plural civic conversation. A room that feels welcoming to lifelong republicans will not automatically feel welcoming to someone from a Protestant or unionist background, and vice versa.

Claire Hanna ended by saying that “the success of any future settlement will depend not on the strength and volume of our conviction, but on our willingness to listen, to accommodate and to reassure.” She also spoke about “legitimising doubt and questions”.

Last November, I argued that the SDLP could become a civic bridge for people like me, but the implication was that there was little awareness of how to get there. I might have been wrong about that. That doesn’t mean the work is finished.

As someone who believes constitutional change is both possible and desirable, I also think preparing for change is about more than institutions and constitutional models. It requires making sure participants in the conversation can remain themselves, ask difficult questions, and challenge assumptions without first having to leave their identity at the door.