Claire Hanna has confirmed that she is putting her name forward to be the next leader of the SDLP.
The South Belfast & Mid Down MP is spending the weekend with her family and is expected to make her candidacy official within the next 24-36 hours but she has already told the party’s elected representatives that she wants the top job.
The Irish News has seen internal correspondence in which Ms Hanna confirms that she wants to succeed Colum Eastwood, who resigned on Thursday after nine years in the role.
Nominations for the vacant leader’s position will close on Friday. Ms Hanna is expected to the sole candidate, meaning there will be no election and that her leadership will be ratified at the SDLP conference on October 5.
She will be the party’s seventh leader since its foundation 54 years ago and the second woman to hold the position.
The leader in waiting has already been endorsed by the departing Mr Eastwood and Matthew O’Toole, head of the SDLP’s assembly group.
In the message to elected representatives seen by the newspaper, Ms Hanna acknowledges that the task she faces is challenging but she believes there is room to grow the party that was once favourite among the nationalist electorate.
The South Belfast & Mid Down MP, who held her seat on July 4 with a 12,506 majority, is understood to already have a plan in place that she hopes will revitalise the party.
She comes from a family steeped in the SDLP. He mother Carmel was briefly an minister in the Stormont executive, while her father Eamon is a former SDLP general secretary.
Ms Hanna’s husband Donal Lyons is one of five SDLP representatives on Belfast City Council.
Slugger O’Toole deputy editor and Irish News columnist David McCann said the party’s former Brexit spokesperson was a “huge asset” to the SDLP.
“Claire’s unique selling point will be that she has held back Alliance in her own patch,” he said.
“The SDLP has suffered since 2019 by losing votes to Alliance and Sinn Féin.”
He said Ms Hanna was a “known name across Northern Ireland and can easily do competent media performances”.
“The question remains whether she can translate her popularity in South Belfast outside to other key constituencies,” he said.
