Devolution is dead and so the SDLP face a choice

It is a bit rich that the SDLP persistently urge a deal in power-sharing talks, when they cannot provide any alternative to Sinn Féin.

If they feel they can do better in talks, then why are they not going to the electorate to win the next election?

Colum Eastwood is regularly appearing on our television screens as a broker of compromise and critic on the deadlock, but for some reason fails to realise the SDLP came to nothing, despite being the first nationalist party to be in the executive in Stormont during the Mallon/Hume era.

The SDLP are the only alternative to Sinn Féin unless there is another party which can take their place and represent the interests of the Irish in Northern Ireland.

Devolution is dead and buried as long as Sinn Féin make impossible and divisive demands such as the Gaelic language which would have profound connotations.

Renewed calls for the Labour Party to run in Northern Ireland have surfaced again as the SDLP drift into insignificance.

It has been the same old whinge from the SDLP in faulting the problems of the DUP and Sinn Féin, but never stepping up to the plate and offering something significant to the people in Northern Ireland.

The SDLP have the ‘hurler on the ditch’ syndrome which they must get out of or they will lose all support.

As Northern Ireland’s quasi labour party, they have a responsibility to represent the underclass, but seem to be failing to do it and failing to tap into that support. Sinn Féin have garnished that role from them with the voice of the SDLP growing fainter.

The SDLP have a choice to make — they can be commentators between the DUP and Sinn Féin or be serious competitors for power in Stormont.

The SDLP seem to be getting into the business of sound-bite politics, which is of no practical value although Sinn Féin are guilty of this too. The SDLP just seem to want to occupy a quiet alcove in Stormont in the hope the public will get sick of Sinn Féin and they might get lucky.

Their position is as absurd as Sinn Féin’s is in opting for sterility in politics, while taxpayers’ keep dishing out for politicians who can only talk into microphones, get paid, and then go home.

The SDLP are experts at coming between the two main parties with criticism and then offering no solutions. The peace process in Northern Ireland is becoming a farce for scamming taxpayers out of their money for representation which does not represent.

Maurice Fitzgerald, Shanbally, Co Cork