Stakeholder

Recent commentary concerning the direction of the SDLP and the positioning of that party by its Leader, Margaret Ritchie has been negative. It is biased against the SDLP but by and large, party members should take stock of Oscar Wilde’s witticism that is better to be talked about than not. There is no doubt that the SDLP struggles to be heard. The carve-up at Stormont means that the party is no longer top billing. The perceived political wisdom is that the party has no depth and that its second tier is purely treading water awaiting oblivion at the forthcoming assembly election.  The truth is much more mundane- the mainstream of SDLP is representation is no less or more engaging than the mainstream representation of any of the other main political parties. The Northern Ireland Assembly membership is mostly drawn from the ranks of local government and given the dearth of responsibilities given to local councils; it is too much to expect the Stormont benches to be filled with high flyers.

Political commentators have been quick to look for signs that the SDLP is changing direction under its new Leader.  Certainly, early on Margaret Ritchie was ill advised with her rash comments at the Irish Labour Party Conference and although none of her predecessors would have made those remarks, they were hardly surprising. The SDLP route map is ‘ourselves alone’. There are no political grooms or brides running up to SDLP Headquarters with proposals. The party is now destined to be forever a bridesmaid to any political changes on the island. It certainly won’t be driving those changes.

The perception of a ‘Stickie led’ Irish Labour Party has little attraction in the North and even less so in leafy South Belfast or the serenity of South Down; therefore, the SDLP path has to be a dolly-mixture’ offering of political centrism with a dash of green and red for colour. The party is in effect its own rainbow coalition. Given that it has set its political parameters at Strabane, Derry and Newry- this is not necessarily a bad thing if it can maintain credibility with its core voters, eat into Alliance votes while appealing to the so called stay at home liberal unionists.

To be successful at this as a strategy the party needs to tilt right of centre. While the some in the SDLP think it unfair- there are clearly no green shoots of recovery in the competition for the nationalist vote. While political centrism or even being slightly right of centre is no bad thing the party needs to learn to serve it up with a dollop of populism. The SDLP should be a party tough on crime; it should not be afraid to take on benefit fraudsters and the culture of State dependency. Given that over 90% of all businesses in Northern Ireland employ less than 100 people – it should be the voice of business and working people. More importantly it needs to protect the best of an education system which people value while fixing the elements which don’t work.

There are those in the SDLP who wax lyrical about their special relationship with the Parties of European Socialists (PES). Unfortunately that’s not the first thing that most of the electorate think about when scoffing down their cornflakes. There is not even a shred of evidence that trade unionists support the SDLP in any great numbers and that includes the teaching profession!

Some individual MLA’s like Patsy McGlone, Alban Maginness and Dolores Kelly make the best of their situation through their committee roles. Others will labour in their constituencies servicing case loads similar in size to those members of other parties. A few are only too willing to be media mega-phones jumping on every passing issue and losing credibility along the way.

Sinn Fein is wrong to under-estimate the influence that the SDLP triumphrate of Ritchie, Durkan and McDonnell at Westminster and attempts to portray their involvement as some kind of updated Redmondite strategy is as misleading as it is disingenuous and historically inaccurate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next Assembly elections are a mere nine months away- commentators predicting the inevitability of an electoral melt-down for the SDLP are premature. The SDLP will not reverse their political fortunes but they can arrest further slippage. The electorate hasn’t a high opinion of politicians- they think they are all worms but the secret as Churchill said: is to believe you are a glow-worm! And for that- one has to be seen- note to SDLP leadership.