There was an upbeat mood at the SDLP conference. Throughout the speeches and discussions, there was an emphasis of stepping up, stepping forward, and getting involved. A wide range of ages occupied the hall, filling up after lunch for Colum Eastwood’s speech (one of his best) and packing in for Claire Hanna’s first official speech as new leader (double the number there for the recent UUP and DUP conferences). A row of children in school uniform sat in the hall observing the conference. There was a buzz amongst young and old of which other parties would rightly be jealous. Every former living leader of the party was present, except Alasdair McDonnell.
The smooth handover of leadership was heartfelt and hopeful. Claire Hanna now needs to take advantage of this goodwill and enthusiasm to the change the SDLP’s internal landscape and focus the party on a handful of externally understandable policies that can capture the imagination and support of voters when an election eventually comes.
– – – – –
The morning was devoted to the brisk proposal of around 40 policy motions, most of which were easily carried by the delegates, covering topics across Shared Ireland Unit, Gaza ceasefire, all-island transportation strategy, cross-border healthcare, definition of a carer, eliminating HIV stigma and discrimination, ending institutional collapse, women in politics, education, tourism, climate, the environment, agriculture, and the economy. While the level of debate was minimal, of note was the wide range of groups (15) – the parliamentary assembly group, 11 constituency associations, along with groups representing LGBT+, women and youth – proposing a rich variety of motions that suggest there’s a healthy party structure.
Bríd Rodgers was confirmed as the new SDLP President.
He spoke about impact of the civil rights march in Derry on this day back in 1968 and said that “when brought to the brink of civil war the founding generation of this party chose civil rights. They chose peaceful means and democratic struggle. And they stuck at it.” Later he added: “As John might have said, they spilled their sweat when others were spilling blood.”
Eastwood spoke about joining the SDLP as a teenager. “It’s easy to join a political party, it’s much harder to stay – believe me, I know!”
On stepping down as leader: “It’s time now for me to serve in a different capacity. 9 years and 10 elections is enough for any leader … But I am so excited and inspired by our new leader. I have known Claire Hanna for decades. As you might know, we haven’t always agreed. (audience laughs) But the few disagreements we’ve had have been about tactics not purpose. I have never met anyone who believes more in reconciling our communities. I am proud to have her as my leader!”
He promised that he’d now “have more time for politics” and “even more time for Derry”.
Eastwood spoke about the broken promises made to the Good Friday Agreement generation, and how these issues drove his vision of a New Ireland: “don’t tell me that this is as good as it gets.”
Eastwood finished his final address to the SDLP conference as leader, saying:
“Conference, nine years ago when you put your trust in me to lead this movement I said that this is the most successful political party in Irish history. That is no nostalgic epitaph, it is a call to action. A call to return to our radical roots and to remember that we are at our best when we are fighting to win the future. It is a call to fight today and tomorrow not just for ourselves but in the substantial common interests of our neighbours and everyone who has made their home here. Friends, the work goes on. The cause endures. And I will be with you every step of the way.”
The applause was long and warm for the man who had led them through 10 elections in 9 years.
– – – – –
Claire Hanna’s speech …
It feels a bit surreal to speak to you as the leader of the SDLP. This party and the people in it have been a big part of my life for decades. So when I think about this new role, and my life as an activist, councillor, MLA and now MP for South Belfast and Mid Down, I think about the people in my life who’ve taught me that politics is fundamentally about putting yourself in the service of others.
I think about my Dad, Eamon. Raised in West Belfast, his teens in North Belfast, many of you know Dad as a regular on the doors, and often found buried in a tally spreadsheet. But that’s not what’s fundamental to who he is. Fifty-six years ago this very day, a young idealist, he was on the Duke Street Civil Rights March in Derry, standing up for what he believed in. Years later, a father of small children in rural Galway, working in Gaeltacht development, he bought a bungalow for our family. But he found it wasn’t connected to the public water supply, and the same was true for our neighbours. Contamination was rife, people in the community were getting sick as a result. What did he do? He started a campaign, he set up a cooperative, he secured the investment our village needed and a water scheme to service many dozens of homes. He put himself to work.
I think of my Mum, Carmel. Most of you know Mum as a former MLA. If you Google her you’ll find she was the first Northern-born woman ever to serve in Ministerial office in Northern Ireland. She was the politician who proposed and drove the inquiry into institutional child abuse. But the woman I know was also – forever – shaped by her work as a staff nurse on some of the bloodiest days of the troubles. A nurse who worked not only nights while she was raising her four children, but weekends in our local leisure centre. A life in the service of others.
Mum and dad gave us a great childhood – and they gave any spare time they had to the SDLP. The story of my parents is the story of nearly every founding member of our party.
Normal people working to provide for their families, but who saw injustice, poverty, division, and put themselves in the service of their neighbours. They’re the first lines and characters in the story of the SDLP – a philosophy as much as a party. They set the conditions for the greatest political achievement on this island – which would change the course of all our lives.
And as an eager and true believer in the Agreement I was determined to do my bit, in the spirit of all Island progress. So I fell in love with a Dubliner… a young Labour Party worker, and created a new North-South partnership, in life and politics. Like all the North South institutions, it’s had its share of stand offs, of tense negotiations, but it has survived. I’ve always said that marriage and being in a political party are quite similar. You’ll never find one that is absolutely perfect, but you pick the best available, the one closest to your values, and you dedicate your life to improving it!
Most of you will know Donal as “the quiet one” in our house. I know him as a man of conviction – confident in his values, certain in what he believes is right. A few months ago, residents in South Belfast contacted him, their local councillor, about racist and intimidating posters. He implored the usual public bodies to act. And when they wouldn’t, he went and took the material down himself. In the face of threat and intimidation, he acted to ensure people of any colour or creed could feel safe in their homes.
The people in my life, so many in this party, who’ve put themselves in the service of others, have shaped the person and politician I try to be. I haven’t quite got the “service for others” vibe from my daughters yet, but seeing them interact with the world, seeing how oblivious they get to be about our city’s divided past, is a guide and corrective for me each and every day.
These days, across the world, politics seems to be infected by populism and the extreme. A collective breakdown in trust and respect for difference. The International order degraded by conflict every day. Our hearts broken by images and inhumanity in the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan. Closer to home, politics hasn’t seemed like service for quite some time. We seem to be a bit stuck, between our past and our future.
And conference, I think the SDLP has been a bit stuck too. In the years since peace, it’s fair to say that we haven’t always been quick enough on our feet. We haven’t been clear about who we are, and that allowed others to define the narratives about us. At times we’ve listened to each other more than we’ve listened to voters. We’ve tried to make people think, when people need to feel. We’ve given the impression of looking back, instead of looking forward.
It can be hard to look forward when politics is so often dragged to the past. Nostalgia is great – if you can get your hands on an Oasis ticket – but it’s no political strategy. We’re rightly proud of our yesterdays, but the SDLP is about today, and tomorrow.
At heart, we’re a party that looks to the horizon. I passionately believe that if this party didn’t exist, someone would invent it.
So our job isn’t to teach people how great John Hume and Seamus Mallon were, our job is to make people feel the way they made people feel. Like that founding generation, our job is to see the poverty, the division, the wasted opportunity, and to put ourselves to work, to the service of our neighbours. When John Hume said that no two people in the world are the same, when he said difference is an accident of birth, he was inviting us to see each other as human beings, to connect to each other. Not as unionists, or nationalists, not as neithers, or newcomers, but as people. The challenges for the world around us are making traditional political identities redundant. Yes, sometimes the SDLP’s answers are complicated … this is a complicated place! We don’t go in for easy answers.
When politics comes down to who’ll be the biggest side, the space for manoeuvre is tighter. We’ve felt that in recent elections. From today on, we talk about the future.
We focus on the things we can control, the things we need to change. I want people to feel represented when they vote for us, empowered. To feel ambitious for their community, hopeful for the future. Our vision, and the clue’s in the name, is a social democracy. I know that’s one of those terms that maybe doesn’t mean that much to people who aren’t political nerds. But to me, social Democracy just means using all the democratic institutions to improve people’s lives. Social democracy has ambition. It rewards enterprise and grabs every chance that comes its way.
But when was the last time you heard a real discussion about our future? A serious plan for our economy and our public services? In a social democracy there’d be a planned approach to housing; a real effort to save Lough Neagh.
Social democracy means social cohesion, not all the culture war. It means reconciling competing interests, not just carving up the spoils. It means social solidarity, pluralism; not ethnonationalism, not majoritarianism. It means space in our story for people of any tradition who share our values. It means transparency – not patronage, not side deals, not the flat out corruption that have obliterated trust in politics. It means stability and governance, even on the hard issues – the opposite of the nihilistic, transactional instability this region has been served up for years. It’s why the SDLP hasn’t just talked about Assembly reform, that we’re the party who’ve tabled serious motions and amendments in Stormont and in Westminster.
Our commitment to social democracy is why we’ve put it up to the First Ministers and both governments to reform, and why we won’t let this drop. Social democracy means honesty and courage, even when the going is tough. It means doing what you can, not choosing inaction because there isn’t enough from London. It means levelling with people that there isn’t a quick constitutional fix to all our problems. That we’re dealing with people’s lives, not just a constitutional waiting room. It means, absolutely, really hard work.
We have to organise around our ideas and we have to sell them relentlessly on the doorsteps and on the streets. I can look every elected representative here in the eye and say that we can do that. We have done that, here in South Belfast, and elsewhere, and we are going to do that, together, across the North.
Nil bua gan dua, nil saoi gan locht. Gheibheann cos ar siul, rud eigin.
There’s no winning without effort. Getting going, gets results.
The SDLP’s politics has value, it has purpose, it has a future. The SDLP, no party, has no divine right to exist. But we do have a right to think, to believe, to say what we feel is right. And this is important. Whether it’s the dull, joyless army of online trolls trying to shut down every opinion that isn’t theirs or the perpetually raging columnists … will it be the Stoops or the Protestants up to no good this week? Tune in!
The SDLP speak for tens of thousands of people who have a right to think differently about this place, about reconciliation and about the future. Expressing a different worldview to other parties isn’t bashing, it isn’t sniping, it isn’t irrelevant. It’s part of a free, democratic society. Sectarianism isn’t just distance from other identities, it’s saying that you’re not allowed accountability from those with the same constitutional view as you. It’s applying standards to one side, then turning a blind eye to ‘your own’. It isn’t negative or destructive to hold the Executive to account for what they do with the power they sought and won at the ballot box. So when I talk about connecting with the communities we serve, I want them to know, we’re speaking for them when we speak in Stormont, in Councils, in Westminster, in Dublin.
Nothing we do is about abstract political theory, or games, but about the lives of the people we serve. If you’re missing precious years in pain waiting for surgery, we’re speaking up for you. If you’re awake at night trying to make the numbers add up for your small business, we’re speaking for you. If you’re afraid to go out at night, afraid to be in your home, because of racist attacks, we’re speaking up for you.
The Executive doesn’t have limitless power to fix all the challenges of the day, but they do have power to improve people’s lives. People need them to step up, not just show up for the good news and shift the bad elsewhere. Pushing back is tiring, I know. They say politics is all about story telling. Some of our party’s core challenges are explaining things that don’t always seem obvious. The messy reality of compromise, of an imperfect world. Explaining that we want the Executive to exist, we just want it to be better.
That not every challenge is a failure of finance from London, some are failures of imagination and leadership. Of exploring the real, fresh interest in a new Ireland, at the same time as rejecting the staleness of the terms unionism and nationalism. Explaining why constitutional change is worth pursuing, even against the weight of our history. And explaining why it isn’t happening right now. That a New Ireland does mean change, but that it doesn’t mean a rupture of everything you know.
It’s taking pride in what we share as Northerners, while believing we can build something bigger together. Rejecting the politics of zero sum, but knowing that having ideals for the future isn’t sectarian. That a functioning Stormont is important, but that it isn’t the limit of this party’s ambition.
When I confirmed I was seeking to be SDLP leader, some people did tell me they were pleased, that I would be pursuing left wing politics instead of constitutional change. That isn’t the case. I want a different future for Northern Ireland *because* of my social democratic values. Because I think the status quo is limiting us. But constitutional change is not the purpose. The purpose is to create a fairer, more prosperous society, with reconciliation at its heart.
We believe, in time, that a New Ireland will best make that ambition real. That change is not the ends, but the best means of improving lives. And we know the journey will truly shape the destination. How we get there, matters. We know that what’s key here is the patient, painstaking work of relationships – in this region, north and south, and between Britain and Ireland. Even when we’re setting each other’s teeth on edge.
It’s very clear to me that many of the problems we face are a result of the fundamental structure of the UK. We’re stuck in a cycle of divided politics and a begging bowl approach to a Treasury who don’t particularly care about our challenges.
The events of the last few weeks have illustrated the fundamental weakness in a system where investment can be paused by whim in London. But those weeks have also shown the value of strong voices and relationships. That giving up just makes it easier for London to give less.
Now, as we always have, the Social Democratic and Labour Party will do the best we can with every mandate we receive. We’ll use the voice given to us by people to be part of all the discussions that need to be had – wherever they are being had – about jobs, about services, about the future of this island.
But we know the harsh reality is that Northern Ireland’s votes and voices count less. That doesn’t mean you stop trying, but in an entity of 67 million people this region is too often an afterthought.
A New Ireland is a social democratic pathway to a better system. Our voices and our votes can not only be heard but can truly drive change in a modern nation of 7 million people. A fiery northern star that can push the things that need to be ‘new’ in a new Ireland. I’m not here to tell you that this a simple fix, or that we should put every egg in that basket and damn the present. Like the people we represent, the SDLP lives in the here and now. Our task and our pledge, is that we’ll use every democratic lever available, for you, right now:
We’ll hold the Executive accountable on your behalf, we’ll press Dublin for more, and we’ll represent people in Westminster, even when we know that place won’t make all our dreams come true. Because our values mean we’re focused not on our own fortunes, but on the people’s needs.
We’ll do everything we can to make Stormont work, but we refuse to believe that that’s as good as it gets. We’ll leave it to others to tell you constantly what’s wrong, while offering ‘today, forever’ as their only vision for the future. A new Ireland isn’t a magic wand. But it takes us closer to a connected, dynamic economy. It takes us back into Europe. To a society that values the arts, to a progressive foreign policy, to a real say in where we’re going.
In Galway I get to be part of community that is gloriously unselfconscious about its identity, its Irishness, its culture. Gloriously open in the cultures and identities that make the city, make modern Ireland, what it is. This region hasn’t been allowed to be that easy, shared place. The evolution and change in the republic of Ireland in the last two decades has been exhilarating to watch. An economic success, a positive force in the world, a genuine cultural superpower. I want that for everyone here.
Of course we want to shape that transition. Of course we’re going to work to embed our values in that emerging Ireland. We’re not going to settle for being passengers on that journey of a lifetime. Change can feel daunting but the principle at its heart is simple and exciting – the people of this region, in all our difference and diversity, coming together to build something new.
We know that a new Ireland means a new Northern Ireland along the way. It means not waiting for a border poll to start changing people’s lives. It means acknowledging how far we’ve come, that change began in 1998. It means that being ‘two communities’ is the distant past. It means, reconciliation not as a buzzword, but a way of living. It means empathy. Talking, learning, unpicking mistrust. Understanding other views, and the things that worry them. It still means tackling the borders in our minds. So that’s what we’re going to do.
I’m so honoured to be taking on this job and leading this brilliant team. I’ve tried to represent people and our party with compassion and courage. With honesty and ambition – the qualities I see every day in our elected representatives and our members, who I am so grateful to campaign alongside.
I feel inequality, sectarianism, the border and lack of ambition like a straightjacket for this society. I want us to harness all our qualities to tackle all those challenges. In the months ahead we’re going to get out there and listen, and hear, and act. We’re going to be clear about who we are and where we’re going. We’re going to find the people in communities who are making change and ask them to make it with us. We’re going to grow our team – we need people who share our values and our purpose to join us and pitch in. Giorraion beirt bothar – more friends will shorten the road.
As a party we need to change how we do things, but not why we do things. We’ll show people that what they have now isn’t as good as it gets, and that we’re the party who’ll build something new. All of us together, I know we can do it. Let’s us move up a gear, let’s put ourselves to work. Thank you.
(applause with Favourite by the Fontaines DC in the background)
Alan Meban. Tweets as @alaninbelfast. Blogs about cinema and theatre over at Alan in Belfast. A freelancer who writes about, reports from, live-tweets and live-streams civic, academic and political events and conferences. He delivers social media training/coaching; produces podcasts and radio programmes; is a FactCheckNI director; a member of Ofcom’s Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland; and a member of the Corrymeela Community.
Discover more from Slugger O’Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
