There’s no doubting Colum Eastwood’s acumen as a politician and skills as a communicator. He won back the Foyle seat from Sinn Féin in spectacular fashion in 2019 and held it again last month, albeit with a significantly reduced majority.
In media interviews he comes across as assured and sincere, while he’s consistently regarded as the best performer in any pre-election leaders’ debates. Compared to his predecessor Alasdair McDonnell, who despite the best intentions, managed to cause division and disillusionment within the party, the relatively youthful Mr Eastwood – aged just 41 – is generally liked among the SDLP rank and file.
During his nine-year tenure as leader he has also succeeded in manoeuvring the SDLP from a small-c conservative party, traditionally close to the Catholic Church, onto a much more progressive footing, particularly in relation to same sex marriage and abortion, though the latter remains an issue of conscience.
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There are therefore many positives in any assessment of Colum Eastwood’s time at the head of the SDLP, as evidenced by the fact that come October he’ll be the party’s second longest-serving after John Hume.
However, there have also been a number of setbacks and missteps that have prevented the electoral growth that the leader hoped for when he took over in 2015, especially at assembly and council level.
In the Stormont election four years previous, under Margaret Ritchie’s leadership, the SDLP won 14 seats on a 14.3% share of the popular vote.
Five years later, little more than six months after Mr Eastwood became leader, the party lost two Stormont seats and its vote share fell to 12%. To his and the party’s credit, the SDLP vote and representation remained stable in the subsequent ‘crocodile’ assembly election ten months later, which saw the overall number of MLAs reduced by 18 to 90. Yet on the current leader’s watch, the number of SDLP representatives at local government level has dropped from 66 to 39.
The party has fared better at Westminster, having lost its three MPs – all previous leaders – in 2015. Mr Eastwood regained the Foyle seat with a whopping majority in 2019, while his colleague Claire Hanna won South Belfast, both defending their seats successfully last month.
But if there were one episode from his leadership tenure he’d rather forget, it’s the 2019 tie-up with Fianna Fáil. What was meant to be a new chapter in Irish politics instead became an ill-thought-out blunder that ultimately came to nothing, mostly due to internal dissent within the ranks of both parties.
It can be argued that circumstances haven’t been kind to Colum Eastwood during his time as leader. Just 15 months after he took the top job, Stormont collapsed amid public outcry over the RHI scandal, remaining dormant for another three years. There were a further two years without devolution up until February this year.
Just eight months into his tenure, the Brexit vote of June 2016 signalled the greatest upheaval in British – and to a slightly lesser extent Irish – politics for at least a generation. It was a development that dominated the political discourse over the following years, though it appeared to help the SDLP’s fortunes in relation to Westminster.
As Mr Eastwood has pointed out himself, the desire among a significant section of the electorate to give the DUP a bloody nose and ensure Northern Ireland had its first nationalist first minister in the shape of Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill did not help the SDLP. The Foyle MP even quipped that under the circumstances, he would’ve voted for his rivals.
As a Derry-based leader, he has faced criticism for being too focused on his native city at the expense of other areas such as South Down and West Belfast, that once upon a time were regarded as SDLP strongholds. But it’s perhaps unfair to blame him for all the party’s ills.
It’s a testament to his record that nobody has yet publicly called for him to resign, while it’s a fair reflection of the man that he is stepping down at a time of his own choosing and seemingly on his own terms.
As with every political party, there will be the internal critics who will be glad to see him go but even they will concede that Mr Eastwood’s contribution to the SDLP has been on the whole positive.
