“A lot of concern about huge rise of postal & proxy votes in nationalist areas. I can assure people – the SDLP hasn’t been orchestrating it.” So posted the SDLP leader Colum Eastwood on Twitter at 3.30pm on Tuesday 16th May, within hours of the unionist press warning that Arlene Foster was meeting the Electoral Office to discuss the matter. Oddly, applying for postal and proxy votes is entirely legitimate, so it’s not clear where the issue would be here (actually if you aren’t going to be present on EE the day of an election it even ensures you can’t be impersonated).
What is as revelatory about Eastwood’s tweet, though, is as a reflex response to current events and what that tells us about current SDLP priorities. And it suggests the party has passed a particular point of pretence.
Here’s a quick gloss of it:
“A lot of concern…” [solely amongst unionists] “…about huge rise of postal & proxy votes in nationalist areas…” [to a supposedly nationalist party this seems entirely axiomatic to have as a complaint, even using the term ‘nationalist areas’ has a derogatory accent to it] “…I can assure people…” [by ‘people’ he means unionists, clearly not those in ‘nationalist areas‘] “… – the SDLP hasn’t been orchestrating it.”[turns out, local SDLP candidates in other areas hadn’t been told not to do this as they been encouraging people to organise postal/proxy votes rather than be disenfranchised, which appears to be leadership policy – even if nationalists were being motivated in greater numbers to seek postal or proxy votes why would the leader of a ‘nationalist’ party make a virtue of not assisting that. Oddly, the term orchestrating is meant to carry that sinister bogey-man connotation].
In so far as the SDLP has a strategic direction, this tweet appears to encapsulate it. While people have repeatedly (and inaccurately) predicted the SDLP’s imminent demise, not since it defended John Hume’s European parliament seat in 2004 has the party faced into an election in which it could conceivably emerge without a single win (apart from European elections). And not only is there no constituency in which the SDLP can credibly hope for a gain, many commentators are making the unfair suggestion that the SDLP are even fielding ‘token’ candidates, in contests like North Belfast and Fermanagh South Tyrone. Unfortunately for the SDLP the truth is much more brutal. Having long ago emptied its locker of candidates who could actually contest seats, it simply has no-one left to offer up to the electorate. Despite what some of its critics say, the optics of fielding candidates in constituencies where it might tip the balance and facilitate a unionist win in a potentially marginal seat has never really bothered the party.
Yet there was a moment, just after this election was called, when the SDLP appeared to hesitate. With its vote appearing to have stabilised in the Assembly election, there was a sudden sense that the threat of Brexit might tempt the SDLP into some form of loose deal to prevent pro-Brexit candidates winning seats. The mathematics is relatively simple. Sinn Féin isn’t likely to lose any of its four existing seats. With any political acumen, the SDLP had sufficient scope to even leverage free runs in Foyle, South Down and South Belfast (likely guaranteeing they would hold all three) against not contesting Fermanagh South Tyrone (which would more or less guarantee Sinn Féin the seat) or North Belfast. An agreed candidate may even have been found in seats like Upper Bann or East Derry. Thus, nationalists would hold at least eight seats, with the possibilities of a ninth or (much less likely) more.
Would the ends have justified the means? As the north voted to remain in the EU, it’s arguably the most democratic strategy that the SDLP could have taken. The meeting of the European Council on 29th April offered only one escape route for the north from Brexit: a united Ireland. A spokesperson for the European Council agreed that this would guarantee the north EU status. For those who claim ‘remain’ sympathies, this poses a fundamental question that the local commentariat has barely bothered to probe – which do they rank as a higher priority: remaining governed from London or remaining within the EU? Those two options are now mutually exclusive. This was brought into even more focus on 11th May with the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, pretty much admitting that a hard border will be an outcome of Brexit.
The SDLP’s answer to the London/EU question seems to be found in its vehement insistence that it can only support candidates who will attend Westminster (paradoxically, the SDLP abstain from elections to Dáil Éireann). Given that it appears that the next Westminster parliament will be dominated by a significant and bellicose pro-Brexit Tory majority, the rigid ideological commitment to having a couple of MPs rattle around, totally ignored, in a largely empty House of Commons more or less hollows out some of the remaining sense of the SDLP as a party with nationalist sensibilities. But, let’s just be totally blunt about this. As much as the SDLP will stubbornly deny it, since Joe Hendron found that tactical unionist votes could help the SDLP outpoll Sinn Féin, the party’s behaviours have been increasingly calibrated against a growing reliance on tactical unionist votes to hold seats like South Down and Foyle. Party strategy slowly but surely shifted purely to continuous virtue signalling to unionists to hold those seats. Like political methadone, this dependency has suppressed any coherent sense of direction within the SDLP, to the point where the SDLP now merely acts a cipher for any political opponents of Sinn Féin, whether that is the likes of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Irish Labour Party, or, republican rivals of Sinn Féin. Eastwood’s tweet seems to reflect a logical end point in that process. The craving for unionist tactical votes has now completely overwhelmed any other motivators for the SDLP. By Friday (18th May), at it’s election launch in Newcastle it was openly calling for unionists to give them votes to keep Sinn Féin from winning seats (even carrying the virtue signalling as far as colour coding themselves to resemble a UUP/DUP election launch – if you don’t believe me, check the photo in the Belfast Telegraph). The SDLP also seems openly happier to have DUP and UUP win seats than Sinn Féin. A point that no-one would really contest anymore. The party’s concern is now clearly remaining with London, not the EU and certainly not the rest of Ireland. Whether you regarded it as such, up to now, it is no longer tenable to describe the SDLP as anything but a unionist party.
Oh how they must dream of their hay-day when they were feted around Europe….but their leader then was a man of principle , a man of honour . They have long strayed from his path ….but, even then, there was that element within the SDLP who saw money before ethics. That element took control of the party and got gongs in Westminster for their subservient efforts. A malign cancer invaded the whole party and it’s terminal….we’re witnessing the death throes….not even Unionist votes will save them now from the wrath of the people.They are bereft of ideas , bereft of values and bereft of voters……
michel barnier pretty much admitting that a hard border will be the outcome of brexit…..
no mention its him and his cronies that will be putting the eu border in place.
Possibly you don’t know much about membership of a club!
The UK joined the EU club about 40 years ago, and for their own reasons decided they weren’t getting their money’s worth, so they want to leave.
But when you leave a club you can’t expect to still get the membership benefits. So naturally the EU will be closing the doors to the UK still receiving those benefits.
How could you expect anything different?
But the UK will want to also close the borders with the EU as they want to restrict the influx of refugees, and surely this is the only way they can do it!
It’s Britain’s border, Billy. No getting away from that. They own that problem, no-one else. They also got us into this mess. Let them own that, too.
no,there will be two borders now.englands,and then new one manned by an garda siochanna and irish customs men enforcing eu law in ireland.lets keep things straight.
All because of Britain’s border. The EU didn’t put it there. Britain did.
Let’s keep things straight indeed.
Indeed there won’t be billy. The border will fall the same way the Berlin Wall did, with a mass crossing of people which will render it irrelevant.
After that reunification will swiftly follow, all without the need for a border poll!
Britain put it there because they and the unionists didn’t like the way the Irish people voted. The fact the unionists were buying weapons of death from Germany, the sworn enemy of their beloved England shows how unprincipled those agents of treason were.