A LOT of soul searching is going on inside the SDLP at present after its recent disastrous Westminster electoral performance.
It lost all three of its sitting MPs, including former party leader Mark Durkan who had gone into the election with a 6,000 plus majority in Foyle.
A high level source in the SDLP had told Derry Daily before the election that the party was going to get “wiped out”.
Asked why, the source replied: “Because politically there is very little between us and Sinn Fein anymore.
“It is now fashionable to vote for Sinn Fein. Why vote for us when you can have the real McCoy?”
On Eastwood’s future as SDLP leader, the source added: “In my opinion, he is not the man to lead our party. He doesn’t have the charisma of John Hume or Seamus Mallon to take us forward.
“So long as Colum is party leader there will be no way back for us.
“If you vote for IRA play parks, if you support Sinn Fein in motions in council chambers, then what do we exist for?
“We either get out or change our policies so that the voter knows we are not a diluted version of Sinn Fein.”
In an interview with The Irish News newspaper on Tuesday, Colum Eastwood said he didn’t think the bombshell election results was all of his party’s own making, saying it became an electoral “battle between the DUP and Sinn Fein”, leaving the SDLP as collateral damage.
And he doesn’t believe Sinn Fein’s success has got republicans any closer to a united Ireland.
“We lost three very good public servants who’d given their lives to Ireland, the SDLP, and their communities,” he told The Irish News’s political report John Manley
“It was nothing they did or the party did but the political context was so poisonous that it was impossible for us to retain seats in those circumstances.”
He said conversations were taking place about the long term future of the party.
Asked if he believes the SDLP brand will still exist in a decade’s time, Mr Eastwood replies yes, adding:
“What’s most important is what happens with our politics,” he adds.
“There’s a lot of people out there who want to see a constitutional nationalist force that is committed to reconciling the people of this country and providing proper representation for our people – that’s what we’ve always done and I believe that kind of politics will survive well beyond the next 10 years.”
The next possible move is a merger with Micheal Martin’s Fianna Fail.
The Foyle MLA believes Brexit has created a new context for Irish politics under which the conventional framework is shifting.
Mark Durkan lost his Foyle seat to Sinn Fein’s Elisha McCallion
“We always think nationally, we always speak nationally, we provide the answers to the national question and have been at the forefront in shaping the architecture that understands all of that.”
But he hasn’t pitched a merge idea yet with Micheal Martin although it is a serious option for the party to consider given its poor Westminster result.
He claims Sinn Féin is deluded if it believes its electoral success can further the cause of a united Ireland.
“It’s going to be very hard for Sinn Féin to convince anybody from a unionist background that they are the people that can unite the people here.
“I think too much damage has been done… they tend too readily into the place that divides us rather than unites us.”
The Foyle MLA argues that Sinn Féin has been good at winning votes but “totally and utterly unsuccessful” in its political project.
“Sinn Féin’s notion that somehow a united Ireland is vested in their electoral success has just not worked.
“They constantly rhyme off how many TDs, MLAs and councillors they have, as if that somehow unites us – it hasn’t and in many ways it divides us.”
He claims that Sinn Féin has adopted many SDLP policies, from supporting power-sharing and the EU to calling for a public inquiry into the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal and advocating post-Brexit special status for the north.
“I’m not sour about it because our job is to persuade people about our party policies but we seem to persuade them quite quickly.” he told the paper.
Mr Eastwood adds that his party was the first to call time on Stormont’s status quo – though he doesn’t want credit for January’s collapse of the assembly.
He believes the current crisis could’ve been avoided had Sinn Féin’s support for an RHI inquiry and Arlene Foster’s removal from office come earlier: “They eventually got it and capitalized on it but they got there too late in my view and now we’re in this crisis that we’re finding it hard to get out of.”
The SDLP leader believes a deal to restore devolution “wasn’t far away” but the longer Stormont is off-line the harder it will be to “patch it back together”.
However, without a fundamental change in attitude that sees the two main protagonists embrace the spirit of power-sharing then the restored institutions may be short-lived, he says.
“What people want is a government that actually does things for them and delivers real and lasting change.
“If it doesn’t do that then it becomes unsustainable again and it won’t be able to weather any storms – and there are plenty of storms coming.”
Mr Eastood meanwhile claims the DUP-Tory confidence and supply arrangement will “irreparably damage” Theresa May in Britain and that the consultative committee made up of the two parties’ MPs could become a “very, very dangerous thing for Northern Ireland politics” if there is no executive to deliver the £1bn agreed as part of the deal.
Whether Colum Eastwood is still party leader by the time Brexit is completed in March 2019 remains to be seen.
And whether the party still exists then or finally mergers with Fianna Fail.
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