Social Democratic and Labour Party

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Social Democratic and Labour Party, founded in 1970, as a merger of several opposition groups in the Northern Ireland Parliament. It included independent civil rights MPs and breakaway elements from the Northern Ireland Labour party, the Nationalist Party, and the Republican Labour Party, together with the full membership of the National Democratic Party, a short‐lived group of modernizing nationalists. It quickly became the main political voice of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland. Its double‐barrelled name reflects the tensions between its two leaders and main founders: Gerry Fitt, the Belfast socialist who led the party until his resignation in 1979, and his successor John Hume, the Derry‐based social democrat and supporter of business innovation.

The SDLP represented the first serious attempt since the time of Devlin to unite Catholic political forces across the province, divided as they were between the left‐wing republicanism and secularism of the small Belfast parties and the conservative and clerically influenced Nationalist Party which had long dominated Catholic politics outside the city. Teachers and other professionals became prominent in the party's membership. It was the first Catholic party in Northern Ireland to have a regular mass‐party organization. It joined the European parliamentary socialist group and established a link with the British Labour Party: winning Catholics' acceptance for these mildly leftist connections in practice proved less difficult than maintaining support for constitutional politics during acute crises such as the Unionist government's introduction of internment in 1971 and the republican hunger strikes of 1981.

The SDLP abstained from the Stormont parliament (1971–2) and from the failed Assembly of 1982–6; supported a province‐wide rent and rates strike (1972–4); and stopped short of full endorsement of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. But it consistently opposed violence, and worked for Irish unity ‘by consent’. It differed from traditional nationalism not only in its interest in socio‐economic and European issues, but also in having immediate constitutional goals as well as its long‐term aspirations for Irish unity. These focused on demands for executive‐level power sharing within Northern Ireland coupled with a strong ‘Irish dimension’, which remained fairly constant from the Sunningdale agreement of 1973 to the Anglo‐Irish agreement of 1985 and the Framework document of 1995. Electoral support for the SDLP fluctuated between 18 per cent and 28 per cent of the electorate during the period 1973–94. Thereafter, however, it lost ground to Sinn Féin, whose share of the vote rose from 18 per cent in 1998 to 26 per cent in 2007, while that of the SDLP fell from 22 to 15 per cent in the same period.

A. C. Hepburn

Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Northern Ireland The majority Catholic party in Northern Ireland, founded on 21 August 1970 by former supporters of the Nationalist Party, the National Democratic Party, and the Republican Labour Party. Its first leader was Gerry Fitt, who was replaced in 1979 by John Hume. The party stands for equal civil rights for all people in Northern Ireland, and a fair distribution of the province's wealth. It supports the eventual unification of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic, but only if this receives the consent of the majority of people in Northern Ireland. The SDLP withdrew from Stormont in 1971, and in the 1970s it supported initiatives promoting cross-border cooperation. In the 1980s, through its leader, John Hume, it has sought to promote dialogue between all groups in Northern Ireland. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the SDLP received around 20 per cent of the vote in general elections. Ironically, in political terms it suffered from the peace process which it had been so instrumental in bringing about, for this legitimized Sinn Féin and made it attractive to much of the SDLP's core constituency of moderate Catholics. In the 2001 British parliamentary elections, the SDLP was eclipsed for the first time by Sinn Féin as the most popular Catholic party in Northern Ireland. From 2001 the SDLP was led by Mark Durcan (b.1960), who was also Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.

http://www.sdlp.ie

Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). The SDLP has been the most effective institution representing the catholic minority in Northern Ireland since the province's establishment. It was formed in 1971 as a coalition between the old Nationalist Party members, republican socialists, and civil rights campaigners, and represented the enlarging catholic middle class. It was initially led by Gerry Fitt, representative of Belfast's Labour tradition. The SDLP accepted the position as opposition party within Stormont, but boycotted it over the implementation of internment in 1971. It joined the power-sharing executive of 1973–4 and suffered from its rapid collapse. In 1979 John Hume was elected leader and developed effective contact with politicians in Dublin, Brussels, and the USA. Its electoral dominance among the catholic community has been challenged by Sinn Fein, particularly over the hunger strikes of 1981. Hume led a peace initiative in 1993–4 in talks with the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams; their agreement provided background to the Downing Street declaration of December 1993, and the republican cease-fire of August 1994–January 1996. At the general election of 2001, the SDLP retained its three seats for Newry and Armagh, Foyle, and Down South. In 2005, it lost Newry and Armagh to Sinn Fein, but gained Belfast South from the UUP.

Michael Hopkinson

Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). The SDLP has been the most effective institution representing the catholic minority in Northern Ireland since the province's establishment. It was formed in 1971 as a coalition between the old Nationalist Party members, republican socialists, and civil rights campaigners. It was initially led by Gerry Fitt, representative of Belfast's Labour tradition. It joined the power‐sharing executive of 1973–4 and suffered from its rapid collapse. In 1979 John Hume was elected leader and developed effective contact with politicians in Dublin, Brussels, and the USA. Its electoral dominance among the catholic community has been challenged by Sinn Fein. Hume's international prominence tends to eclipse his party, whose future will depend on the success or failure of the peace initiative.