Its candidate Martin Morgan was comprehensively outpolled by Sinn Fein’s Bairbre De Brun last Thursday. The party’s share of the vote slumped to just under 16 percent, a further one percent drop on its poor showing in November’s Assembly elections. In contrast, Sinn Fein’s share increased to over 26 percent. Were these patterns to be repeated in a British general election, possibly as soon as next year, the SDLP could conceivably lose all its MPs.
Such a result would be devastating and the party would probably never recover.
Analysts believe that the Newry & Armagh constituency would fall easily to Sinn Fein. The retirement of former SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon leaves the way clear for a strong performance by Sinn Fein’s Conor Murphy. The SDLP’s vote collapsed there in 2003.
In South Down, the SDLP would again struggle to retain its seat. Eddie McGrady, who stood down from the Assembly elections in November, may not run. Sinn Fein stole an Assembly seat from the SDLP there and would fancy its chances of consolidating its support even further.
In Foyle, home to John Hume, SDLP leader Mark Durkan would face a concerted challenge from Sinn Fein’s Mitchel McLaughlin. Hume’s legacy had little bearing on Thursday’s European election and it’s plausible that he will again be of little help to his successor.
It seems the SDLP’s salvation would lie in developing a strong All-Ireland strategy. SDLP insiders concede that Sinn Fein’s remarkable rise in the South makes the republican party an attractive choice for Northern nationalists. They anticipate that the SDLP will put feelers out to prospective Southern allies over the coming months.
But here the party is split. The green wing, home to people like former SDLP vice-chairman Tom Kelly, advocate an alliance with Bertie Ahern’s Fianna Fail. Ahern has said in the past that he is keen to organize in the North. Many within the SDLP view Fianna Fail as the natural choice for a merger. It has a good reputation among Northerners who admire its dedication to the Northern peace process. Unlike Sinn Fein, it has no ties to paramilitarism.
Fianna Fail may also view a merger as viable. Sinn Fein’s Southern support is on the rise and Ahern has conceded that Fianna Fail lost many of its seats last week to Sinn Fein. In a bid to fend off further Sinn Fein encroachment the party may take the view that it has to confront republicans in their own backyard.
Meanwhile, many at SDLP headquarters see the Irish Labor Party as being closer to the SDLP’s values and goals. Moves toward restructuring could be fraught with danger.
It seems that the SDLP was ill equipped to deal with the Sinn Fein electoral machine last week. This is despite the fact that the Sinn Fein presence on the ground in the North was noticeably down on previous elections. The party clearly felt it had safely secured a seat in the North and threw its efforts into ensuring its Southern vote came out.
Morgan failed to capitalize on any lingering sympathy the SDLP may have among the Northern electorate. He claimed during his campaign that up to 40,000 SDLP supporters failed to vote in November. He believed that this time out they would not allow their party of choice to suffer at the hands of its republican rivals. This scenario did not materialize.
Instead, Morgan, through no fault of his own, was dealt a humiliating blow. His first preferences fell well short of the quota for election. To add insult to injury, transfers from Sinn Fein were not forthcoming. While DUP voters transferred in large numbers to the Ulster Unionists? Jim Nicholson, around only half of republican voters gave their second preferences to Morgan. Many merely “plumped” for the Sinn Fein candidate leaving the rest of the ballot paper blank. Had a concerted campaign to organize the nationalist vote taken place there is every possibility Morgan could have secured the third and final seat on the back of De Brun’s transfers.
Commentators have suggested that in future nationalists learn a lesson from the Unionist voting bloc. Two Unionists were elected despite a much-reduced turnout in Unionist wards. DUP voters, who no doubt endorse the party’s anti-Agreement agenda, had little problem in transferring to Nicholson who belongs to the pro-Agreement camp of the UUP. Any acrimony that may exist between Sinn Fein and the SDLP comes nowhere near the deep-seated contempt many within the two unionists parties have for each other.
Only such a strategy, it appears, will save the SDLP from electoral oblivion in the future. This, however, is unlikely. The traditional support for Sinn Fein, which stuck by the party in the difficult days of censorship and exclusion from the political process, views the SDLP as a competitor that must be defeated as much as the unionists. While in certain electoral districts, such as Derry’s, Sinn Fein has transferred to the SDLP, large tracts of republican heartland remain steadfastly opposed to Durkan’s party.
The summer months will see much soul-searching within the SDLP. The party now needs the stomach to contemplate radical measures. Cosmetic alliances with parties in the South are unlikely to stem the Sinn Fein tide. For too long, critics have said, the SDLP thought of itself as a peace movement as opposed to a political party. It could be argued that the SDLP has already won the peace it for so long worked towards. The question now facing the SDLP is: now that the peace is won, do the peacemakers sit back and leave the politics to someone else?