The SDLP, renewal and a new nationalism

Carmel Hanna has announced she will be stepping down from the Assembly in the coming months. The party owes Carmel a lot. She has excelled in office and as a constituency representative. The party’s representation has grown in South Belfast during her tenure and the SDLP is now the largest party in the constituency with Alasdair McDonnell MP for this increasingly diverse part of the city.

There will be an internal party process to replace her which will culminate on December 9th. All members resident in South Belfast will have a say in who takes up the role. That’s over 300 people and I know there will be great debate over the coming weeks about who should take on this important role. I will be asking members whether they think I am the sort of person they would like to see succeeding Carmel. So far the feedback has been very positive.

In today’s Belfast Telegraph I argue the SDLP does have a big future if it renews polticially and in personality terms.  The full text is below.

SDLP starts hunt for new MPs

The SDLP has written to all party members asking anyone interested in being considered for a nomination to contest the next Westminster election to apply now.

This is the first time to my knowledge that the an open application system has been used by a major Northern party and is taking place under the stewardship of the party’s CEO, Michael Savage.

To date candidates were picked following a nomination process within constituencies with all nominees going forward to convention. The new process which has two new stages, written application and interview, will lead to a short list on which members can vote at convention.

Similar systems have been used by parties in GB for many years and have been credited for the renewal that took place in the British Labour Party in the 90’s and is currently taking place in the Conservative Party.

The feedback I have received from inside the party has been positive. Many members welcome the creation of an open application system.

The process is being conducted by constituency. The applications for Foyle and South Belfast close on September 7th whilst members considering a run in  North Down or East Belfast have until October 26th.

Interviews will be complete for all eighteen constituencies by November 9th allowing selection conventions to take place in the run up to Christmas and early next year.

New nationalism now needed

What is obvious about Sinn Fein’s current woes and the SDLP’s stagnation is that a new nationalism is needed on the island of Ireland. You could of course argue a similar case to modernise British nationalism (unionism) here but ill dedicate this blog to the former. .

No major political party is seeking to recast the old nationalism’s which have shaped 20th century Irish politics into relevant expressions of identity and ambition fit for the 21st century.

As Belfast academic Richard English notes in his recent tome, nationalism remains one of the most succesful forms of political expression around the globe for good reason. It transcends, class and generation. It has the capacity to bridge creed and often provides a shared space for those of differing (left-right) ideological outlooks. Whilst Connolly said the cause of Labour is the Cause of Ireland,  it is also true for the very many of a ‘nationalist’ outlook on this island the cause of business or indeed the cause of science are also the cause of Ireland.

Unity is the central objective of Irish nationalism. The lack of agreement between the large nationalist parties on this island about what a united Ireland might look like is arguably the greatest threat to it ever achieving its central objective.  Because of the absence of an agreed vision of unity, it has become a party political issue with different nationalist parties seeking to ‘out green’ each other on an issue which should really unite them.

There is a constituency looking for a new Ireland.

Younger generations are disinterested in re-running the old battles of the past. Old ideologues are looking increasingly out of touch and old ideologies feel more and more irrelevant to the lives and challenges facing ordinary working people and families across this island.

The time has come for some positive and progressive nationalism. Credible on unity but not solely defined by it. Capable of speaking to working families, business people and international investors in language they understand. Strong on conversation and not confrontation, with sustainability at its heart and innovation in its DNA. A modern politics for a 21st century Ireland. in short a politics that can ignite conversations and unlock ambition in every county at the same time as being respectful and credible to unionism.

Before we can develop a stratgy fro unity we need a vision for this island not just in 2016 but in 2026 and beyond.

This is the great opportunity for a new generation of Irish politicians ansd civic leaders.

We need an SDLP – UUP alternative

Patrick Murphy had a typically thought provoking piece in yesterday’s Irish News about the need for an ‘Opposition’ at Stormont which was also covered on Slugger.

Mr Murphy’s central premise is that some day the North will need to consider whether compulsory power sharing is working. This is not a new argument. Last year Mark Durkan raised the issue in the context of a debate around a strong and inclusive Bill of Rights.

The Irish News columnist has a point:

In the old Stormont, the opposition was ignored.  In the new Stormont, the opposition has been abolished.  How democratic is a parliament without an opposition?  Advocates of the new system argue that it brings political benefits.  But does it?  It gives constitutional authority to sectarianism and promotes political schizophrenia.  Both the DUP and Sinn Féin claim the other is the enemy, within a supposedly partnership government.  Do nationalists benefit by having nationalist ministers?  For example, would our roads policy be different if Arlene Foster replaced Conor Murphy as regional development minister?

But does a focus on the structures of government take away from other significant weaknesses in Northern politics?

Adversarial, winner takes all, politics with clear governments and opposition is the way here in the UK and Ireland but not everywhere. The American system is much more complex as is the French one. Not to mention Isreal or Belgium, both of which have systems in which power is effectively shared between different offices which may or may not be held by representatives of the same party.

Our system doesn’t make politics more difficult it just makes it different. What is worrying is that the weakness of our political parties may be the real issue which is undermining the opportunity for government here.

Neither SF or the DUP will score well on their record in Government. To date the Executive they both lead has distinguished itself for inaction rather than results and this is very unlikely to change in the run up to the 2010 UK General Election and the 2011 Assembly poll. This is not because they have a free run in institutional terms with no opposition breathing down their necks - it is because they are being measured by their support base on their ability to stand up to each other rather then work together. That said we do need to ask whether to some extent the SDLP and UUP are letting them away with it.

I see no great public desire to see instability return to Stormont. As much as it pains many who are ambitious for the North, the basic threshold for success in the public mind appears to be stability. The vast majority of Northern voters seem willing to reward parties who stay together. That they are achieving very little whilst doing so is not an issue as there is nobody offering an alternative which would also be stable.

So heads down and do nothing then?

With the exception of the 60,000 who support the TUV the other million voters in NI seem supportive of powersharing and devolution.

If either the SDLP or UUP were to leave the Executive they would stand accused of fostering instability. But that does not mean they cannot change they way they work together and inside and outside the Executive. Right now is not so much a debate about opposition but one about alternatives.

There is nothing in the structures of government which would prevent the UUP and SDLP from developing common positions on key issues.

Education is an obvious example. Agree the basic principles of a workable system based on academic excellence and social justice, possibly with pupil choice at 14 and at least both parties could demonstrate that Irish and British people who call this region home can agree on important issues.

Tackling our divisions is another. Commit to a shared future and stand together against sectarianism and racism.

Even on the economy there is very little on which the DUP and SF agree.  This creates yet another opportunity for the UUP and the SDLP. They should agree a real Green New Deal and have the courage to publish it as an alternative response to the current recession.

All this does not in any way prejudice either party’s nationalism or unionism. No more than it would prejudice the Green Party, Alliance or PUP if they were to support agreed positions. What it would illustrate is that our two communities and their representatives can work together and share a commitment to the success of this region and its people. This would be a real platform for change.

The system can be reviewed till the cows come home but real change will come when nationalists and unionists start really sharing power and working together for the betterment of all.  The DUP and SF seem unable or unwilling to do this. The question is whether the SDLP and UUP could?

Bloggers launch

Heading over the SDLP bloggers’ launch at ten.

Will post from the gig with the party PPB on YouTube.

Who is serious about unity?

The word on O’Conall Street is that the Irish government does want a border poll this side of 2020. Sinn Fein are trialing all over the North outlining their ‘Strategy for Unity’. Can’t tell you what the strategy is because they don’t let the press attend these public meetings and they have never published a policy paper on the matter, unlike the SDLP did in 2005.

But this is a debate which extends well beyond nationalism. For a United Ireland to become a reality, Irish nationalists will need to have convinced a significant part of the unionist community that a yes vote is not such a bad thing and that their identity, rights and economic status will not be affected by a unitary state. In other words unity will only be true when it unites people and their representatives have a lot of talking to do before they can claim to be united. The divisions are not just in Northern Ireland. There is a fault line between North and South built on seventy years of jurisdictional disparity. In the South church and state coexist in a way which has worked well for the 26 counties but would be unsustainable in a united Ireland and several generations have ignored the North, wishing it away with the coarse remark that ‘you are all the same up there’. Southerners do not understand northern nationalists and despite a constitutional claim over the territory which lasted until ‘98, bizarrely see unionists as foreigners.

Stephen King, the former UUP advisor, tells the story of when Bertie Ahern apologised to the UUP delgation after they were asked to remove their poppies before a meeting with him. That was back in the run up to the agreement. Ahern was right. The poppy is precious to very many people on this island and that is something we simply need to accept. It is also means something to tens of thousends of Irish nationalists who lost their ancestors in the First World War.  To describe it as offensive is to stand there waiting to be offended. There are very many symbols, British and Irish, which will not survive in the new Ireland. I think the poppy will and so it should. But poppies won’t put money in your pocket no more than you can eat a flag.

When communities prosper they have the opportunity move on. When people’s standard of living goes up their insecurities go down. The south maybe be more postnationalist today then twenty years ago and that is partly down to its  recent prosperity. The north will prosper too and with increased wealth, spread across the whole community, attitudes will change and priorities will shift. A stakeholder society will replace and dependency one.

SDLP proposes education solution

The SDLP is proposing an interim CCEA test and the establishment of a new educator led working group to break the deadlock in the current education crisis. The Party has tabled an amendment to an Alliance Party motion which will be debated in the Assembly on Tuesday.

The amended motion reads:

That this Assembly notes that schools may choose to use an examination as part of their entry criteria under the Minister of Education’s 2010 guidelines; calls on the Minister of Education to ensure the provision of a CCEA test, as she previously proposed, for a maximum period of two years; believes that no school should be allowed to admit its full year 8 pupil quota using the outcomes of that test alone or using any other test; recommends also admission criteria outlined in the Minister’s document transfer 2010 and welcomes the first criterion as a means of ensuring all schools help to tackle social deprivation; and further calls on the Minister of Education to set up a new educator-led working group tasked with building a sustainable consensus on non-selective transfer whose recommendations the Executive and the Assembly would use as the basis for legally binding regulations from 2011 at the latest.

This move will be welcomed by educators and parents who have been placed in an impossible situation since the Minister’s unilateral decision to end the 11plus without having any replacement system in place. It will be interesting to see how the other parties react to what appears to be a genuine attempt to show some leadership on this issue.

New political communications

Tom Kelly raises an interesting question about political communications in today’s Irish News (you will have to subscribe to see his article as the Irish News is one of the very few newspapers still to charge for online content).

He argues an established point that you should never give succour to your opponents when communicating about politics. He advocates the old school approach of hierarchical controlled communication. Everything is centralised, everything is created at the top and trickled down. In this traditional world there is no space for spontaneity or bottom up opportunities. Conversations are not encouraged as these might ‘dilute’ the message. 

This was a comfortable place for many public relations professionals and journalists. The demarcation lines were clear. PR people fed the press and professional journalists transmitted the message. As long as there are newspapers and traditional news programmes this may be so.

The question though is how do communications professionals take advantage of the opportunities social and digital media present and and how do they target the many thousands of adults here on this island who now consume their news and debate politics through non traditional media such as blogs, you tube, Facebook and online news portals. Targeting these requires a different approach. It means letting go and levering the most from each media. That is what the SDLP was doing online last week when it posted a YouTube video of Ian Paisley Junior saying the SDLP would be much tougher on the DUP in government then Sinn Fein are.

The Obama campaign shows how traditional and online PR can be merged creating an ‘inline’ solution.

 How did they do it?

They created a campaign brought to you by “you”:

Obama’s campaign focused heavily on the personal touch, making its theme all about “you” and not “I”. As a direct result of this empowering message over 3 million people were compelled to make personal donations to ‘team Obama’, many of whom gave less than $100. This powerful personalisation mobilised the masses, creating active advocates who were willing to help deliver the message and get out the vote. John McCain, who claimed not to use the ‘net’, subsequently lost a large majority of the under 30 vote.
 
As we all know, when it comes to an electoral campaign, millions is spent on developing what is considered to be a powerful brand image. Take the Tories for example, and their ‘interesting’ new oak tree logo or Labour’s easily recognisable rose emblem. Obama on the other hand, allowed his supporters to customise his logo in order to make it personal to their individual understanding of his message and ideologies. The most prominent example of this was the Artists for Obama, a collective of designers who put their stamp on the Obama brand through original t-shirt and poster design. The ability of team Obama to loosen the reigns and lose control allowed them to not only gain an insight into the creative minds of the nation, but also gain those well needed votes in the polls.

Met people where they were:

Many would claim that social networking sites have no real place in the political arena and, regardless of their mass audiences appeal (notably a young audience); those numbers will never be transferred into votes. Obama, however, proved the skeptics wrong entirely. By setting up an online presence on both large social networks – such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, but also niche networks such as LinkedIn, BlackPlanet, GLEE, Eons and MiGente – he expanded his potential audience and expanded his reach to communities across a wider social landscape. Again, this is a powerful medium that politicians and communication campaigns have yet to be effectively on such an epic scale.

Listened as much as they talked with social media:

As we all know, there is a tendency for politicians to prefer the sound of their own voices more than those of their constituents and supporters, but the key to Obama’s success was that he used social media not just to talk to supporters, but to talk with them. As a result some supporters with good ideas and suggestions even made the transition from social media supporter to paid staff.

With over 2 million Facebook supporters alone, they had no choice but to listen to the community if they were to maintain this support and attempt to transfer it into results in the voting polls. It also made it substantially easier to ask for help when they needed it most.

Leveraged the power of video:

We can all only imagine just how costly a nationwide electoral campaign can be in a small country such as the UK (Labour were said to have spent in excess of £15.2 million on the 2005 election campaign), so just imagine the inconceivable amount spent in a super-states such as the US,  particularly where advertising is concerned. This is where the online video sharing facility, YouTube came to play a substantial role, providing Barack Obama with over 14,548,809 hours of free advertising; the equivalent of $46 million.

Not only were millions users tuning in to watch ‘The Obama song’ but also viewing footage of live events, creating mini documentaries and circulating campaign ads that never aired on American television. Essentially, these served as rapid response messaging ads for online and TV news consumption.

Built a mobile campaign for use on the ground:

As we all know, picking up your phone to hear an automated, robot-like voice, spouting out a generic, lackluster message, has never met with the warmest of responses, therefore the utility of mobile messaging was hailed as the next big thing in personalising campaign messages and targeting individual households. Team Obama managed to compile a mobile phone database of over 3 million phone numbers which acted as valuable tool in the swing states, and can continue to be a useful communication tactic for the new Administration.

If you couldn’t before see how the public relations industry could learn a lesson or two from effective and strategic political campaigning, I’m sure you now can! Although these strategies will continue to evolve as the digital landscape change, many of these tactics can easily be applied to the communications efforts that we, in the industry undertake on a daily basis. The importance of digital reputation and the power of the online community is one that is often underestimated and can result in a loss of communication with key audiences and influencer groups.  This is something that all PR practitioners should never forget; as an industry based so distinctly on how best to target specific audience groups in exciting and innovative ways would be committing social suicide if it were ignore the success stories such as Obama’s. If we are to continue to expand on the recent successes of the Public Relations industry and to build on its solid reputation, we must ensure that we continue to create and influence advocates in every imaginable way and through every conceivable medium.

The ability to tap into this source and create a faultless ‘inline’ convergence can be the difference between a major campaign loss and an epic historical victory. That is why echoes of Obama’s message of ‘change we need’ and!’ yes we can!’ will resonate in the minds of the masses for years to come and why McCain’s is likely slowly fade into silent insignificance.

I’ll support any professional communicator who is willing to take advantage of this opportunity.

DUP say SF not up to the job

The tensions in the DUP-SF coalition spilled over on BBC’s Hearts and Minds last night.

Ian Paisley Junior said he believed Sinn Fein was letting the DUP off the hook on too many issues and that the SDLP would be a much tougher partner in government. As the host Noel Thompson put it ‘Vote SDLP, the DUP want a better fight’.

Ulster un-enlightenment

It’s Darwin’s 200th today and the DUP are calling for creationism to be given the same prominence as the theory of evolution when the Ulster Museum reopens. The director of Paleontology at the Museum went on radio to talk about the impact of Darwin’s work on science and our understanding of the world around us. He was followed by the DUP MLA and Chairperson of the Assembly’s Education Committee, Mervyn Storey.

Mr Storey treated the listeners, and what sounded like an increasingly bamboozled interviewer, to an incoherent and at times bizarre trashing of the theory of evolution. Mr Storey claims the scientific community have been hoodwinked into following Darwin and his disciples and that the greatest empiricists on the planet are ignoring the ‘other’ science which claims the earth is in fact only 6000 years old and man did not come from the apes.

Mr Storey who’s views are at odds with the UN, the vast majority of the world’s governments and the Department of Education, is being paid by you and I to scrutinise the work of the department responsible for teaching science to our children. Yet he wants creationism taught in the science class alongside evolution. Not in the religion class as a faith perspective, but in the science class as a tested and credible alternative theory on the origin of the species.

So there you have it. An environment minister who denies climate change and the chairperson of the education committee who rejects evolution. 

Did these men had a bad experience with science as children?. One thing for sure, as adults they seem to display an irrational fear of it.

You could be forgiven for thinking that we are living in an age of Ulster un-enlightenment!

UPDATE 14.00

The Northern Ireland Assembly’s Environment Committee has voted in favour of an SDLP motion of no confidence in the Minister for the Environment at its meeting today.