Flickr image by: Tiger Pixel

I was at Reboot Britain, a social media conference, in London recently and bumped into an friend from my time in Belfast. With him were a bunch of other Irish guys. All of these dudes had a deep interest in politics north and south of the border – I know it’s a rare thing! I got talking to one in particular who is an authority on Northern Ireland politics – no word of an exaggeration. I’ll call him Dave.

I asked Dave where did he see Northern Ireland going from his point of view – him being a catholic. Below is the gist of our conversation.

SDLP are a great party with great people but they are dining out for too long on the successes of John Hume.

John Hume is a great man but his work is finished. It’s time for a the SDLP to come up with new angles.

If you were to look at Sinn Fein from a historic background it is difficult to see how they can unite people. Adams still sees his “activity” as the activity one would do when in a war situation – in other words he shows no remorse. That’s one thing the SDLP can use to get the votes back again: How can Sinn Fein unite the people of Ireland when they cannot unite the people in Northern Ireland?

Adams was in America recently trying to bring about a united Ireland. United Ireland Gerry? How about uniting the North of Ireland first? You have to convince the “other side” that it’s a sensible and good thing to do. Sinn Fein and Adams in particular cannot do this so it’s up to the SDLP – at least from the Catholic point of view.

However! The SDLP has for too long had a “catholic good, protestant bad” mentality. In the past it has been the main thing that has kept me luke-warm about them. Their stance is changing I am glad to say. It just needs to change more. As Dave explained to me “My best mates are protestant.” It’s up to SDLP to unite the Catholics with the Protestants and then convince the Protestants that they are an every man, woman and child party. “And here’s the kicker!” exclaimed Dave. “All the Irish rebels at the start were Protestant!” He’s right. Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, Charles Stewart Parnell all used to walk about on Ash Wednesday with a naked forehead.

So Adams cannot bring about a united Ireland on a theoretical level. On a purely practical level there must be another way of looking at things.

Sinn Fein do not sit in the Houses of Parliament so on a purely practical level SDLP have to focus on this and explain to the electorate that Sinn Fein just cannot deliver on that basis. How can Sinn Fein do their job when they are not in the same room (or is it planet)? SDLP has to argue this case stronger. Besides SDLP are better than Sinn Fein at the nuts and bolts of politics.

Sinn Fein have proved to have been short-sighted in their dealings. Often you can read about Sinn Fein being short changed in their dealings with everyone. They haven’t delivered on anything. Look at the current situation. “Brits out!” was a cry from the IRA for years. Now what? The Brits are still in Northern Ireland and the IRA have surrendered their weapons. So what does that mean? It means basically that the three and a half thousand people who died in the ‘troubles’ that lasted 30 odd years died for nothing. The Civil Rights Movement and SDLP achieved more in their first 2 years than Sinn Fein / IRA did in their entire killing spree .

Then SDLP needs to look at why the south thinks that the southerners who spend money in the north are not patriotic. As Brian McKeown explains in his blog:

It was somewhat baffling to hear southern Finance Minister Brian Lenihan complaining on RTÉ radio that “We’ve enough problems with people going to Northern Ireland for many goods and services… there is a huge loss of revenue to Northern Ireland because of all the purchases that are taking place there,” as featured on last night’s Hearts and Minds. This came along with his comments in the Dáil that his budget was “No less than a call to patriotic action.”

SDLP needs to speak with the Lenihans and find out why they think that giving money to the north is “unpatriotic”.  SDLP needs to convince them that Protestants living in Northern Ireland might not be all that they want them to be and they may not agree with everything that they agree with but they are still Irish people – whatever the protestants must think, that is what they are. If you don’t believe me ask any Englishman.

OK, that’s Irish politics sorted. Next week: Palestine.

Flickr Image by Professor Bop

Afterthoughts

Just on a footnote, I was at an SDLP event in London also recently and mentioned that SDLP are sitting on a goldmine of a name. They are the Social Democratic Labour Party. Social is the first word. In today’s media social is the buzz word with social networking, social media, social computing etc. I looked at their Twitter account and noted how they had done about 16 tweets on Twitter in the previous couple of weeks. Sinn Fein had done 16 in the previous day.

Also whilst I was home recently I talked with a friend of mine who is proud to say that he has never voted Sinn Fein in his life. I asked him about where he saw the SDLP. He said that they have lost the way. They are not appealing to the guys on the street. They are getting their votes from the middle classes but not connecting with anyone else. He sympathised however saying that 15 years ago that’s all everyone talked about in Northern Ireland, politics. Now people talk about who they are going to vote for in X-Factor and Big Brother. I am afraid I cannot come up with the answers for that war.

My cousin’s just wrote to me saying:

“Lots of great points here and well made but i want to know what they will do, not just where they can score points on against another party.  did they come up with any answers for the unemployment situation?”

SDLP are never short of ideas. That’s their strength. They have been in this game for a long time. When the IRA were terrorising voters SDLP was canvassing hard to get the people in to vote. As my father say, Sinn Fein didn’t want anyone to vote for 30 years and now they are so anxious about getting votes they are claiming votes for the dead.

SDLP came up with an economic paper recently called New Priorities In Difficult Times. As Professor Mike Smyth, University of Ulster says “as far as ideas goes, this is the only show in town.”