ANALYSIS:Delegates are looking for stronger leadership as they fear the party could be squeezed out of the Executive
A GROUP of SDLP supporters gathered in the bar of the Armagh City Hotel on Friday night at the start of the annual conference. An SDLP member in her 20s spoke to the man standing beside her. “And what’s your name?” she inquired.
“Currie, Austin Currie,” he replied.
We’ve certainly come a long way from Caledon in 1968 when Currie was staging a sit-in in a campaign for housing rights for Catholics.
A long way too from the founding of the SDLP in which Currie played a leading part, a long way from the doomed 1974 Sunningdale powersharing government in which Currie was a minister.
The vignette brought home that politics has truly moved on in Northern Ireland. The pitch for new votes must be made to a generation that has no real memory of the turmoil of the Troubles. Back when Currie campaigned under the slogan, “vote early and vote Austin” the SDLP had the nationalist vote wrapped-up. Now the advantage is with Sinn Féin.
This is an important point in the SDLP’s history, a difficult time for its leader Mark Durkan. He must ensure that the party remains relevant and remains in sight of Sinn Féin, now that the political heavyweights such as Currie, Séamus Mallon and John Hume have quit the stage.
Hume was at the conference looking content and relaxed, free of the burden of leadership that took its toll on his health. He was happy to chat to old friends, but left conference business to the current activists.
There were some mutterings on the margins of the conference about Durkan’s leadership but no complaints aired from the podium by any of the speakers during the public session. It wasn’t so much that anyone was suggesting there should be a change of leadership – rather that the party needs sharper hands-on management and a dose of adrenalin.
“We don’t want a new leader, we just want stronger leadership,” said one key veteran.
Durkan is probably conscious of that frustration and uncertainty of direction among the faithful. “Like so many, SDLP members were inspired by Barack Obama’s message of change,” Durkan said early in his keynote televised speech on Saturday. “We have been energised by his passion, encouraged by his idealism and enthused by his call to purpose.” A decent enough soundbite but it just didn’t ring true. There is still an abundance of idealism among party members but they badly require a new burst of energy and passion and enthusiasm.
Durkan didn’t quite provide that elixir in his speech but he did outline the type of strategy he will employ to try to keep the SDLP in range of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
Up at Stormont, Durkan and other speakers, such as Séamus Mallon, Alban Maginness and Minister Margaret Ritchie, claimed that Sinn Féin and the DUP were trying to grab power for themselves and to marginalise the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist Party. That’s a reference to the DUP’s proposal to reduce the number of ministerial departments from 10 to six, and Sinn Féin’s apparent air of quiet relaxation about the idea.
With such a move it’s just about possible that the SDLP could be squeezed out of the Executive after the next Assembly elections, leaving the bulk of power in the hands of Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness and the other DUP and Sinn Féin ministers.
Durkan and other senior speakers were suggesting that Robinson and McGuinness were engaging in a form of Animal Farm politics where the corrupting influence of power was going to their heads.
On Friday night Mallon branded the DUP and Sinn Féin ministerial line-up as the “politburo”, a phrase also used by Maginness.
Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie also made repeated references to the DUP-SF “carve-up”.
Translated, the message to voters and party members seemed to be: keep the SDLP strong to keep the DUP and Sinn Féin straight.
That’s what punters are likely to hear on the doorsteps from SDLP canvassers in the months of late spring and early summer ahead of the June European Parliament election poll.
Durkan seems to believe that Gordon Brown will also call Westminster elections this year, so two hard tests could be coming relatively soon.
The European candidate is North Belfast Assembly member Maginness who was handing out clever mock-up Guinness labels with the slogan, “Maginness is good for EU”.
There is a certain unpredictability about Europe this year due to the presence of hardline independent unionist Jim Allister and the candidature of Diane Dodds for the DUP, hardly the strongest of contestants given that she lost her West Belfast seat in the last Assembly elections.
The odds appear stacked against Maginness retrieving the SDLP seat in Europe from Sinn Féin’s Bairbre de Brún, but a strong fourth-placed showing and a demonstrable recovery of lost votes – and who can totally rule out a shock result given the unusual nature of this election – would help morale.
It’s the sort of bounce that Durkan and his party needs.