Social Democratic and Labour Party

Northern Ireland left-of-centre political party, formed in 1970. It aims ultimately at Irish unification, but has distanced itself from violent tactics, adopting a constitutional, conciliatory role. Its leader, John Hume, played a key role in the negotiations which ended in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement on power-sharing. It secured 24 of the 108 seats in the new Northern Ireland Assembly, elected in June 1998; the party's deputy leader, Seamus Mallon, was voted deputy first minister (to Ulster Unionist David Trimble) by the first meeting of the Assembly. Mallon resigned with Trimble in July 2001, following the failure of the IRA to proceed with decommissioning. In October 2001, after it was confirmed that the IRA had put some arms beyond use, the SDLP nominated their leader elect, Mark Durkan, to the post of deputy first minister.

The SDLP, led by John Hume (1937- ), was responsible for setting up the New Ireland Forum in 1983, and for initiating talks with the leader of Sinn Fein (the political wing of the IRA), Gerry Adams, in 1993, which prompted a joint UK-Irish peace initiative and set in motion a Northern Ireland ceasefire 1994-96. The party won three seats in the 2001 general election.