Conall McDevitt has an article on the future of the SDLP on his site. He defends the party's record, admits to some organisational weakness and makes a strong and passionate case for not joining up with Fianna Fáil. I am not going to quote from it. Get yourself over to www.oconallstreet.com where you can read the lot and give Conall some feed back.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
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Just flicked over to the piece written by Conall - I agree wholehearedly with him - some people thought that the SDLP had done its job a year ago when it finally got SF and the DUP into Governmnet - but what has become increasingly apparent is that there is still much to do - I reckon SF is not up to the job and Ruane in particular is an absolute disgrace - the SDLP is letting her off the hook time and time again - and are not tough on her as they should be - in contrast M Ritchie only has to blink and the shinners are down her throat - the SDLP are seen as weak and this is exactly why - the leadership needs to make big decisions especially onsome of the elected reps who think that if they sit tight then FF will come to their rescue - nothing could be further from the truth - my message to the SDLP is to get out there - get off their high horse and their backsides and give the people the politics that they want and deserve after nearly 40 years of terror.
An interesting piece by Conall. It's nice to know that there are still people from the SDLP family that value their links to the PES and SI. When I asked on this site back in February what party members thought of their international pals, nineteensixtyseven informed me:
"I don't imagine that many of them think too much about it. Views are probably divided, relations with BLP and SLP aren't as strong as the PES links would suggest."
I'd tend to agree. Quite why the SDLP - a pro-European, social democratic party allied to what is probably the world's largest political movement - would want to lets itself be swallowed up by a conservative nationalist party that is linked abroad to an oddball group of Eurosceptics and post-fascists really perplexes me. If I were a card carrying party member I'd either want to a) maintain the SDLP as independent party or b) merge with Labour.
Incidentally, did anyone catch Brian Feeney's article in the Irish News this week? Not as kind as Conall's and not a very optimistic prediction for the SDLP, but then it is Brian.
Don't worry Johnny - there are plenty of socialists and social democrats in the SDLP - just sometimes the pro FF wing deafen us with their loud voices
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