The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP; Irish: Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP has fraternal links with other European social-democratic parties, including the Irish Labour Party and British Labour Party (neither of which contest elections in Northern Ireland). It is affiliated to the Socialist International and Party of European Socialists.
The SDLP is also an Irish nationalist party. Its basic party platform advocates Irish reunification, and the further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom. During the Troubles, the SDLP was the most popular Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland, but since the Provisional IRA ceasefire in 1994 it has lost ground to the republican party Sinn Féin, which in 2001 became the more popular of the two parties for the first time. Established during the Troubles, a significant difference between the two parties was the SDLP's rejection of violence, in contrast to Sinn Féin's support for the Provisional IRA.
The SDLP currently has three MPs in the House of Commons, and 14 MLAs in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Read more about Social Democratic And Labour Party: Foundation and Early History, Aims, The Belfast Agreement and Return To Government, Electoral Performance, Possible Merger, Westminster Parliament, Proposed Dáil Participation, Remembrance Day 2010, Leadership Challenge and Election, 2011, Leaders, Deputy Leaders
Famous quotes containing the words social, democratic, labour and/or party:
“No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“We have been educated to such a fine—or dull—point that we are incapable of enjoying something new, something different, until we are first told what it’s all about. We don’t trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. In short, the blind lead the blind. It’s the democratic way.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“By this also ye must know that women have dominion over you: do ye not labour and toil, and give and bring all to the woman? Yea, a man taketh his sword, and goeth his way to rob and to steal, to sail upon the sea and upon rivers, and looketh upon a lion, and goeth in the darkness; and when he hath stolen, spoiled, and robbed, he bringeth it to his love.”
—Apocrypha. Zorobabel, in Esdras I 4:22-24.
“We are the party of all labor.
The whole earth shall be ours to share
And every race and craft our neighbor.
No idle class shall linger there
Like vultures on the wealth we render
From field and factory, mill and mine.
Tomorrow’s sun will rise in splendor
And light us till the end of time.”
—Eugène Pottier (1816–1887)