Claire Hanna confirms bid to seek SDLP leadership

Claire Hanna looks on course to become the new leader of the SDLP after formally confirming her intention to seek the role.

The South Belfast and Mid Down MP will now be the overwhelming favourite to replace outgoing leader Colum Eastwood and is widely expected to be the only candidate to seek a nomination for the position.

Foyle MP Mr Eastwood has already backed the 44-year-old to succeed him, and she has also been endorsed by the party’s most high-profile representative at Stormont, Opposition leader and South Belfast MLA Matthew O’Toole.

Mr Eastwood announced on Thursday he was standing down after nine years as leader, saying it was time for a change at the top of the party.

He will formally resign at the party conference in October.

On Sunday, Ms Hanna confirmed she would be making a bid for the leadership.

“In friendship and respect, I thank Colum Eastwood for his service during turbulent times, including 10 elections in just nine years,” she said.

“His skills and instinct have been invaluable for the SDLP and politics as a whole.

“I know Colum will continue to serve people as a passionate MP for Derry and play a substantial future role through our New Ireland Commission.”

Ms Hanna said she was motivated by finding practical solutions to the challenges being faced by all communities.

“But people are losing faith that Stormont and politics more generally will deliver for them,” she added.

“They live with failing public services and a politics driven by division, dysfunction and pettiness.”

Ms Hanna, whose family is steeped in the traditions of the SDLP, said recent years had been challenging for the party.

Once the most powerful force in nationalist politics in Northern Ireland, the party that co-designed the Good Friday Agreement trailed in as the fifth largest party in the last Assembly election in 2022 and fell below the threshold of seats required to take a position in Stormont’s powersharing executive.

Ms Hanna said the party must have the “humility” to recognise that it has to work harder to “resonate with people and earn future electoral success”.

“We have to listen more, organise better and offer a fresh, compelling message of optimism and clarity of purpose,” she added.

“We must more actively engage voters, including those who didn’t grow up in the nationalist tradition, who share our social democratic and anti-sectarian principles, many of whom are curious about the potential of a reconciled new Ireland.

“We need to offer and campaign with a dual mission of making life better in the present while building for a new Ireland, explaining why we believe constitutional change will improve people’s lives and opportunities.

“We have to make our values real for people and sell them relentlessly door to door.

“We need to recognise that too many towns and neighbourhoods don’t see or feel SDLP’s effort locally.

“We have a real opportunity to grow our electoral reach.

“No other party is fundamentally committed to tackling all three of the major divisions, inequality, sectarianism and partition, limiting our region’s potential.

“No other party is driving accountability in Stormont, standing up for Northern Ireland in Westminster and actively shaping constitutional change.

“If I am selected by members to be SDLP leader, I’ll work determinedly with elected representatives, activists and new members we need to go out and recruit, to make SDLP values relevant for the modern political landscape, grow our vote and pursue our goal of the ending the divisions that have held people back for too long.”