Where exactly do the SDLP stand on the Good Friday Agreement? – Catherine Seeley

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By Catherine Seeley

First published via CatSeeley.WordPress, Wednesday 14 January 2015

CatSeeleyA few months have passed since Upper Bann MLA, and SDLP Deputy Leader, Dolores Kelly’s bizarre, if not at all noteworthy, speech to the SDLP Party Conference. Yet I still find myself pondering a number of her ‘tactical’ visions for the SDLP over the next number of years.
They seem all the more relevant, after the SDLP’s refusal to endorse the recent Agreement at Stormont House.
It is somewhat dismaying that the SDLP Deputy Leader continues to display a growing disregard for the Good Friday Agreement. Is Dolores reflecting the view of the SDLP? She tells us that she is increasingly being told by party activists and supporters that the SDLP should move into opposition in the Assembly. Is that really the case, or is Dolores off on another solo run?
In the aftermath of Stormont House, it would seem that her boss, party leader Alasdair McDonnell, is in two minds.
It could be suggested that Dolores Kelly has been encouraging the SDLP to move in to the anti-Agreement axis, where others have already been engaged in attacking the peace process and political institutions for some time.
Our society needs political leadership and defence of these institutions; not a return to Unionist majority rule, not a return to British direct rule and not a situation where the GFA, and other recent agreements, are undermined by political parties for their own selfish reasons.
Mrs Kelly’s assertion at her party conference back in November that, “yes, we have POWER-SHARING but not as the SDLP originally envisioned it” speaks volumes.
She talked about a mind-set of “winning elections” and “cutting the current 2 parties out”, providing more and more evidence that her opposition to the GFA power-sharing institutions is in fact based on her own party’s interest and electoral performance. It is this same attitude that has stopped the SDLP endorsing the recent Agreement.
When the SDLP were the largest nationalist party, Dolores and her party colleagues were very happy with the GFA and power-sharing arrangements. But as we know, of course, a lot has changed. Sinn Féin now hold the joint First ministerial post and spearheaded the recent Stormont House negotiations.
Attacking the political institutions because you are not a minister in the executive, or because your party is no longer the main representative of nationalism, is not what the Good Friday Agreement and power-sharing are about. Nor is it what weeks of talks were about.
Cherry-picking the Stormont House Agreement, or attempting to ride two horses as an Executive party, pretending to be in opposition, is not Political Leadership.