“Last year, I wrote that the SDLP’s survival depended on whether it had the will to revive itself. Under Claire Hanna, there is evidence that it has found that will.”
James is Belfast Live’s dedicated Political Reporter covering news and politics across Northern Ireland.
When Colum Eastwood resigned as SDLP leader last summer, I wrote that his decade in charge had been one of decline and missed opportunities. I argued then that the party was perilously close to irrelevance and that whoever succeeded him would inherit a poisoned chalice.
That assessment was not made lightly. The SDLP of John Hume and Seamus Mallon once set the terms of nationalist politics, combining social justice with a commitment to peace and constitutional change. But by the time Eastwood stepped down, the party had shed councillors, MLAs and MPs, and had become more often an afterthought than a central player. Sinn Féin had broadened its appeal and had captured the language of progressivism, and the SDLP seemed stranded, unsure of what role it could play in the politics of post-Agreement Northern Ireland.
A year on, the question remains the same and that is can the SDLP find a reason for voters to return? Under new leader Claire Hanna, the party is trying to provide an answer. And though nobody should underestimate the scale of the task, there are signs that the story of decline may not be the party’s only future.
What distinguishes Claire Hanna’s approach is her emphasis on delivery. Eastwood’s rhetoric when he sought the leadership in 2015 was that he was “fed up losing.” Claire Hanna is fed up with politicians promising and not delivering. “We’ll be marking them against that because people want to build up confidence in politics as a way of doing things,” she told me as we sat down for an interview ahead of their party conference this weekend. It is an important shift in tone. Voters are no longer interested in who can craft the most stirring speech; they want to know if anything will change in their lives as a result of politics.
She is equally frank about the dysfunction at Stormont. The system, she argues, was not just designed with vetoes in mind but has developed a veto culture that has slowed down and in some cases blocked decision-making altogether. She is not naïve about the structural reforms required, but insists culture matters just as much. Parties can choose to cooperate, to lead, and when necessary, to take difficult decisions. For too long, many have chosen the opposite.
Claire Hanna’s independence of thought is also evident at Westminster. The SDLP may sit alongside Labour, but it is not beholden to Keir Starmer’s government. On issues like Gaza or welfare reform, she has been willing to dissent. She admits Labour in office has disappointed those who wanted change after the chaos of the Conservative years. Yet she maintains that where common ground can be found, the SDLP will work constructively.
That ability to act independently, while forging alliances when necessary, has already had tangible results. She points to the defeat of the Conservative government’s Protocol Bill, an initiative abandoned not because ministers had a change of heart but because she says, SDLP MPs stood up week after week and exposed it as false. Persistence and clarity helped build a coalition that eventually forced the government to drop its plans. It was a reminder that even a party with two MPs can still influence outcomes if it knows where to press.
But influence in Westminster will not by itself revive the SDLP. Sinn Féin has not loosened its grip on nationalist politics, and disillusionment with Stormont remains deep. The bigger challenge is to persuade people in Northern Ireland that the SDLP can be a vehicle for real change once again. Claire Hanna talks about politics not as a soft play area for MLAs but as a way of putting power in local people’s hands. The rhetoric is ambitious, but the test will be whether voters see evidence that it can be matched by results.
Here, at least, there are the faintest signs of a turnaround. The latest LucidTalk poll put the SDLP on 11% support, up from 8% last year. On its own, that is not a transformation, but it is a recovery and the kind of movement in the numbers that suggests voters are at least willing to listen again. For a party many had written off, that in itself is significant.
Last year, I wrote that the SDLP’s survival depended on whether it had the will to revive itself. Under Claire Hanna, there is evidence that it has found that will. Whether that will is enough to restore the party to genuine relevance is still an open question. But for the first time in a long time, the SDLP looks like it has a chance and in Northern Ireland’s crowded and cynical political landscape, that is no small achievement.
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