SDLP Manifesto Analysis

Overview

The SDLP (founded 1970) are viewed as a nationalist centre left leaning political party, usually seen as less radical than Sinn Fein. This perception may have something to do with the fact that the SDLP are also seen to be less radical on sectarian matters as well, so there is a logical follow through that they are also not as radical in other areas of their politics. However, when looking at SDLP's 2019 manifesto, they held more left leaning beliefs than Sinn Fein. It appears that they are somewhere in between socialism and the centre-left, probably best described as moderate left. They espoused extremely left wing views on social issues, education and social security (despite officially maintaining some traditionalist social views). We often found they associated with some socialist policy but would more often pick a centre left position. Right wing policy responses were barely found, which reaffirmed our belief that the SDLP can be seen as a firmly left wing party who wants to see slow change take place by supporting publicly acceptable left wing policy. That is also why, for us, the ideology of the centre-left does not neatly fit into the SDLP according to this manifesto, as most centre left parties are willing to see some centre right policies adopted on some issues. However according to this manifesto, the SDLP do not see that as an option with the complete lack of centre right ideas.

It should be noted, when looking at the SDLP’s 2016 manifesto (which was slightly more developed than 2019) we found some more instances of centre right policy being implemented. However, we favoured taking the most recent manifesto for the SDLP rather than one which is four years old.

Link to manifesto: https://www.sdlp.ie/site/assets/files/43536/sdlp_manifesto_ge19_-_final.pdf

Indepth analysis article coming soon