The following is an edited version of the speech delivered by Mark Durkan MP to the 35th SDLP annual conference
"An ever stronger SDLP is the best bet for the Good Friday agreement and for ending the frustration and stagnation of the last seven and a half years.
Not because we are protective of the agreement we were central in delivering. But because we know how essential that agreement is to delivering change and stability.
Let's be clear: we stand by the agreement, not because of who wrote so much of it - the SDLP; but because of who voted so strongly for it - the people of Ireland. When we last gathered in February, I called on you to fight harder than you had ever fought before for the values we uphold and the vision we hold out. Today you should hold your heads high.
And it's not just in elections that we have been vindicated since our last conference.
Remember back in February, we said it was time to reclaim the good name of Northern nationalism for decency and democracy.
We stressed that democratic Ireland had to keep the positive pressure on. Democratic Ireland - and indeed Irish-America - held the line we advocated. The IRA backed off to the extent that we got their welcome statement in July and decommissioning in September.
They used to tell us decommissioning could never happen, would never happen, should never happen. That it wasn't required under the agreement. That to move on decommissioning would be tantamount to surrender. That the IRA couldn't move while there was a question mark over David Trimble's position.
What about the rejectionists? That a unilateral move on decommissioning would be counter-productive and dangerous. That decommissioning would only come when politics was working. And certainly not while unionists were failing to live up to the agreement. And after years of this, what has now happened? Decommissioning.
How? Unilaterally.
When? Nearly three years into suspension and counting. With the DUP - the rejectionists - in the ascendant.
Why? Because democratic Ireland said enough is enough. SDLP vindicated.
And it's not just the IRA. It's loyalists. When the UVF went on their murder spree over the summer, we warned the secretary of state that the blind-eye approach had to stop with loyalists too.
When we met him in late summer, he told us he was worried that acting on his responsibility would be counter-productive. We pointed out that it was the anything-goes signal that was already counter-productive.
We even warned that it would only encourage the UVF - and other loyalists to flex their muscles over Whiterock.
One hundred and fifteen shots fired at the police later, 146 blast bombs, 116 hijacks and countless petrol bombs - then the secretary of state specified the UVF. He now says that his decision sent a very clear signal. That must mean he now accepts that his reluctance to call the truth earlier had been sending an unclear signal. A dangerously mixed signal. SDLP vindicated.
Our successful "North South Makes Sense" conference in Derry heard ideas - many our own - for new funds, new initiatives and new ways to tackle old problems.
Brian Cowen highlighted some of these opportunities for joint approaches when he addressed the Northern Ireland Economic Conference recently. He did so especially congratulating the SDLP for the strength and sense of our North South campaign.
No longer the strand that dare not speak its name. North South speaks for itself. North South Makes Sense. SDLP vindicated.
Or take Irish unity. In spring we published our document, A United Ireland and the Agreement.
This again set out the strategy you had endorsed on how we saw a united Ireland in the context of the agreement and the agreement in the context of a united Ireland. We launched this North and South.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin postured around a call for a Green Paper on Irish unity. They even put forward a Dáil motion calling for such a Green Paper, as if the colour was the thing. No other party backed their empty proposal. Instead, they all endorsed our strategy for unity.
SDLP vindicated. On Irish unity. On an all-Ireland basis.
Just as we will be vindicated on our strong stand on the Good Friday agreement.
The DUP also now say they're all for equal rights and opportunities, but they still have their sights set on the Equality and Human Rights Commissions and destroying the positive agendas they need to be working on.
They claim to represent working-class loyalist communities and want to lift them out of deprivation; yet they want to retain the 11-plus that brands so many of those children failures and keeps them locked in the cycle of despair.
Leadership that's working? No. Leadership that's wanting.
Now if the DUP ever do think about changing their stance, they could do worse than have a word with the past masters Sinn Féin.
Whereas nowadays the economic targets the Provisional movement talk about include increasing tourist figures, it used to be that their economic targets in tourism were the hotels bombed by the IRA.
Once they tried to bomb Manchester out. Now, it seems, they are trying to buy Manchester out. It brings a whole new meaning to the term property boom.
In 1798, Wolfe Tone was a voice for the men of no property. Today, the Provisional movement's main interest is the property empire of the men of their army council.
When we meet the two governments later this month, our message will be clear: get on with the agreement. Drop the "concession of the week" approach that has undermined confidence so badly. Get back to the consensus-building approach.
That gave us the agreement in the first place and offers the only credible basis for taking it forward now. Now is the time to start the countdown to restoration.
Whatever reasons there may have existed for not moving forward before, there is no excuse for not doing so now. It won't be before time. If anyone was in any doubt before that suspension and direct rule hurts, they know it now.
This party's mission is to make the most of our future.
Our purpose is to ensure that the agreed future chosen by this generation of Irish people means that future generations will grow up in a landscape of hope.
We want to leave the past behind.
But we insist that we do so on a moral basis.
One that does not ride roughshod over the right of victims to truth and closure. We saw collusion in the past. Now we have collusion on the past - between the British government and Sinn Féin. Each covering up for the other's wrongs.
Covering each other's backs.
Because let's be clear. This new on-the-runs legislation does not just apply to a few people, as a panicked Conor Murphy - who flew over to Westminster to welcome the legislation - claimed.
This applies to every one of the 2,100 unsolved murders - including well over 300 state killings.
And not only does this deny families justice, it robs them of truth. The 2,100 killers can sit back and wait to see if the police ever come knocking on their doors.
If they do, they needn't worry. Sinn Féin even negotiated that they don't even have to go down to court and listen to how they shattered victims' lives.
They can apply from the comfort of their own homes to be an OTR .
Imagine how the members of the British Army's murderous Force Research Unit will thank Gerry Adams for that.
Don't be fooled into thinking that this was just incompetence on Sinn Féin's part. We warned them.
They don't negotiate for the Irish nation. They don't negotiate for northern nationalists or the wider public interest. They negotiate for themselves.
I give notice that if the British government proceeds with this flawed Bill, then we will table amendments at Westminster to try to undo the damage done. To try to prevent the wrongs that this corrupt law would bring. And if we cannot have justice, we must at least pursue truth.
The Provisional movement may think they can get away with covering up their deeds of the past, but the one thing they can't cover up is that their "war" broke - not the rule or resolve of the British - but the hearts andhopes of their fellow Irish men and women.
They sermonise on truth. They preach about justice. But what do they practise?
Members, in February I made the call and you didn't let me down. But, as all these challenges underline, this party's work has only just begun.
We took a hit in the 2003 Assembly elections and we can all remember just how deeply it hurt. But we didn't lie down. We got up again and we fought back. And the fight goes on. We did well in May, but we need to do better still - in every constituency we contest, in every election we fight and in everything we do. Not just at election time, but all the time. Nor just in how we serve the people when they look to us for hope, but in how we respond to people when they come to us for help.
Where we did well in the elections, there are clear lessons. For voters, seeing the SDLP on the doorstep of Downing Street or Leinster House is one thing; but seeing us on their doorsteps is everything. Getting voters on the register.
Going back to those voters who weren't in when we called. Not giving up on people when they told us they weren't going to bother voting.
So let us show the people that the SDLP really is back by getting back out on their streets and fighting hard for them and for their votes.
So how do we fulfil all that? We do the simple things better than we have ever done them before. We get organised.
Where we lost Assembly seats in 2003, we need to show real determination to win them back. And it's not just in the Assembly that we should be looking positively to make gains. It's in Europe as well.
I want our next candidate for Europe selected as early as possible. This will require a change in our constitution and that must be on the to-do list for the new Executive we will elect this weekend.
We know all these things present challenges. Our challenges. We are going to meet them head on.
We know why we're doing it. And we know who we're doing it for. We need to keep rebuilding this party, because this party is going to rebuild this nation.
As we go forward from this conference, let the message ring out that the SDLP stands by higher values and stands for a better vision. That ours really is a better way to a better Ireland.
The reason I want us to be getting on with things is so that I can serve not just the people of Shantallow, but the people of the Shankill too.
For the SDLP, politics is more than the choice between parties - it's the choice between two futures.
Between a society that genuinely cherishes all children equally and one that is content to label some children failures and let others fall behind.
Between economic prosperity and economic sterility. Between the rule of law and the law of the jungle. Between a free society and a fear society. Between a truly shared future and further Balkanisation.
Between grasping now the opportunity the agreement gives this generation; and squandering it to consign another generation to hopelessness.
Between a truly united Ireland and one that is ever more divided.
Between a truly internationalist view and the same old insular view. Standing strong for economic justice for Africa as well as social justice in Ireland.
Between those whose mission is to close the gap between what is and what ought to be; and those who thrive on those gaps growing ever wider.
Between hatred and hope. Honesty and hypocrisy. Between going forward and going nowhere.
Between the parties that gave us the worst of our past and the one party that is ready to give us all the best of our future. These are the choices. That is our work. This is our time.
SDLP lead on."