So the SDLP and Fianna Fáil finally did it. They didn’t quite go the whole way. It was more of a ‘stepping out’.
Maybe it was more like a reading of the banns. The bridal party was there and absent were those likely to find ‘good reason why this marriage shouldn’t take place’.
The SDLP has been in a bad place for a very long time. The party support has been in decline and the general electorate has become more polarised making casualties of the SDLP and UUP.
This is despite the SDLP front bench being one of the most impressive in Northern Ireland. Frankly, they don’t actually get the rewards their talents deserve. As a Spurs supporter I recognise the pattern.
The other side of that coin is that since its inception the SDLP has been ill disciplined, poorly organised and comprised of constituency silos.
Successive SDLP leaderships have been worthy, earnest, skilled and selfless. Unfortunately they have also been hopelessly bereft of organisational skills. SDLP members will recognise this so there is little point in labouring the point.
Against that background, I recognise that older SDLP members have had their hearts forged in fire. Their sacrifices are legion.
As someone who spent over twenty years as an SDLP activist, I have admired many and fought with some.
We all walked the same walk. Our vision was clear. No words of bigotry, no fingers on triggers and no coercion of views. Violence whether from a bomb, plastic bullet, armalite or baton was simply wrong. Lifelong friendships flowed not only from common cause but from common experience.
Fair employment, electoral change, reform of policing, the administration of justice and the format of the peace process would never have occurred without the SDLP.
Personally I cannot think of a braver set of people. It was and remains a broad coalition of interests.
That said, times change.
Electoral success is now more dependent on luck than design. Politics in Northern Ireland has become what Seamus Mallon forecast - Balkanised. There is no natural partner for the SDLP within Northern Ireland. The Ulster Unionists ensured that when they deserted Mike Nesbitt.
That doesn’t mean the SDLP has given up on Northern Ireland, it merely means that they have to recalibrate their loss of direction and relationships. Or more appropriately they need to map the direction of the electorate - not just the membership.
The launch of the SDLP/Fianna Fáil was ok but it wasn’t the big bang entrance expected. I am unsure whether it captured the imagination of the electorate - only time will tell.
People, ie political representatives at the launch from both parties, seemed at ease with other. That’s actually important because politics like everything else depends on relationships. Whilst some SDLP representatives are committed social democrats, I doubt if their politics are hugely different from former social democrat now Fianna Fáil TD, Stephen Donnelly.
But the decision to accept the new partnership will come down to personal choice. In making that choice SDLP colleagues should respect the integrity of each other.
The SDLP has a very honourable pedigree which is useful to Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fail’s roots and ability to reinvent itself is very useful to the SDLP.
Both parties also gave their members the right of a conscience clause - something that parties of the left don’t afford their members.
Some younger members of the SDLP seem particularly vexed about the prospect of SDLP/Fianna Fáil merger -which this project falls seriously short of.
They believe in a particular narrative about which they are passionate. It’s a very liberal agenda and one which I support. The notion that only a SDLP brand can deliver this or diminishes it is simply not true.
Fianna Fáil showed progress on equality issues long before the SDLP and there is much further to travel for both parties. I actually understand the position of SDLP Youth. Once after an election a Sinn Féin member told me that if the SDLP had a paramilitary wing he felt I would have led it.
As the Green Party prove in Britain, politics isn’t all about winning elections or numerical supremacy but I am old school - if you can’t win elections you can’t change things. This ‘partnership’ deserves a chance.
Reg Empey’s link with the Tories is what the DUP has now achieved. Mike Nesbitt needed more time to bed down his attempt to build an alternative coalition. The reality is, make a change, do it enthusiastically and stick with it for more than one election.
