John O’Connell is an SDLP supporter and son of former SDLP councillor and Mayor of Derry, William O’Connell. In this article, he outlines his view of the party’s present position.

Given that the SDLP in Derry can be extremely influential on the party as a whole across the North of Ireland, it should be seen as extremely important that the party get things right in this city above everything else.

At this point in time, the new leader of the party in the North, Colum Eastwood, is a son of the city of Derry. Therefore SDLP supporters may feel that the party is in good shape in Derry and that the party is “bound” to improve its vote in the coming Assembly elections, which will presumably be next May 2016.

I don’t think that that is a realistic expectation in the context of a city which, with the steep fall in SDLP support in local politics with the advent of the new links to Strabane, is seeing greater control being exercised by Sinn Fein. They seem to believe that this is being mandated by their increasing support in the city and across the North and, indeed, across all of Ireland.

Colum Eastwood, in my opinion, and I don’t want to dampen his enthusiasm, is not in a strong enough position to take significant numbers of votes off Sinn Fein. His strength can really only be in bringing back a lot of former SDLP voters who no longer vote at all. I assume, of course, that “the carrying of the coffin” incident will neither be used by republicans to mock him nor by former SDLP voters to alienate latent middleclass support. Some extra support may come in the medium term, rather than the short term, to a party lead by Colum Eastwood.

In the short term, I see no extra votes coming to the SDLP in the city or to the party over the entire North. Why would people vote for the party now just because it has a new leader? I see Colum Eastwood having to eat his words next May in relation to winning – “I’m fed up losing” – unless he can turn a moderate personal improvement in Derry into a victory for the party. I think that the party will do no more than hold its share of the votes over the whole North, and that would be quite a decent achievement in itself. There will be no victory unless something unforeseen happens.

Derry city is crucial to the SDLP. That is why it is so frustrating for SDLP supporters like me to see the party’s fortunes on the wane here. This is the city of John Hume, the man who brought universal values to politics in order to end the futile violence. Not since Irish saint Columbanus, who brought universal values to mainland Europe over 1400 years ago, transforming the outlook of Popes and the Christian Church, has there been a greater believer in peaceful co-existence between warring communities than John Hume.

However, John Hume is the case in point. Why are we not seeing young men and women come forward from disadvantaged backgrounds who have succeeded in making a name for themselves in the professions – in teaching like John Hume, or in law, in medicine, in accountancy or even in business start-ups. Why are we not getting the best candidates for the people of this city?

What difference will having a professional background make to the SDLP? I think it’s down to commitment. John Hume never walked away and only retired due to ill-health after his work was done. Generally, those from under-privileged backgrounds have more commitment to their work. Importantly, too, after their best efforts, they’ll know when they’re no longer needed and, due to their qualifications, they’ll find other work without having to hang on for dear life to a job, any job, within the party framework.

The ability to walk away is the ultimate power for any politician. It means, inter alia, that their decisions tend to be free from interference from outside sources that might seek advantages for their members or just seek to put pressure on a politician over an issue.

However, the qualifications of most of our politicians in this highly educated city, with the really high levels of attainment, leaves a lot to be desired. The South has many politicians from the professions and they tend to be thriving within the party selection conventions and in front bench positions.

Yes, of course, the threat from Sinn Fein in this city has tended to mean that the SDLP is constantly under pressure from a wide range of working-class politicians. You would think that the SDLP would move to a position where it would place reliance on working-class politicians themselves.

But that is not what is happening. What is happening is that middleclass politicians, with little or no professional qualifications, some with not even a degree, are being seen as the saviours of the party. How are they managing to do this? That is the sixty million dollar question.

To be blunt, in my opinion, it goes back as far as the Troubles, and the entry of Sinn Fein into politics in the early 1980s as a challenge to the SDLP. It may be a case of desperate measures in desperate times, but certain working-class SDLP politicians were at that time given favourable treatment in return for their support and, with their consequent closeness to the party insiders, this has resulted in the advantaging of the middleclass within the party in Derry and has, perhaps unintentionally, created a barrier to the entry of working-class background professionals, who may sense that they are neither wanted nor even permitted to work within the party. They are certainly not being asked to stand, which some of them should be.

Today, there are also clever graduates from ordinary backgrounds among the SDLP councillors in Derry – in fact, a significant number of these councillors have university degrees – and their lack of advancement to MLA level may be testament to the existence of barriers to entry as I have described them.

This has resulted in a situation, I am disappointed to state, where some of the party’s most senior figures in the city are pretty light in terms of academic qualifications, namely university degrees. That is not satisfactory, whatever the excuses proffered.

Nonetheless, it also ensures that there is great difficulty for John Hume figures to find their way into the party in Derry and, as a consequence, the wider party across the North is being denied leadership from people who have been tried and tested in their chosen discipline before moving to something they may feel personally called to in terms of a vocation.

Since the retirement of John Hume, the SDLP in Derry has been in decline except for an unexplained blip in this year’s Westminster election that helped Mark Durkan. Yet, as party leader, Mark Durkan oversaw the decline in SDLP votes in Derry and across the North for a decade. Capable as he seemed to be, many voters deserted his party.

Derry SDLP supporters may be too close to the proceedings to understand why this happened, but I would be of the simple opinion that it was because many SDLP voters saw Mark Durkan as very different to John Hume and, therefore, not what they were really looking for. Similarly, Colum Eastwood was campaign manager for Alex Attwood’s European election bid last year, which resulted in the lowest ever SDLP result, so it would be wrong to be presumptuous about his future success. But I wish him every success.

The fact remains that the most successful political leader in the SDLP’s history was John Hume. He was plainly sold to voters honestly as a man who, like so many at that time, had used new changes in education to advance himself into a successful career, one that was full of achievements. People warmed to him. People supported him. He was one of them and he never forgot it. The people never forgot it either.

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