Claire Hanna believes the circumstances under which she finds herself leading the SDLP are considerably more stable than they were for her predecessor.
Colum Eastwood’s near-decade in charge of the party was “politically turbulent for reasons beyond his control”, she says, citing Brexit and Stormont’s double suspension.
“At times we were relegated to almost pundit roles where we were reacting rather than being proactive in the manner we’d like to,” the 44-year-old says.
Another stabilising factor since she succeeded the Foyle MP 100 days ago on Tuesday is a Labour administration in London.
While she regards the Starmer government as welcome relief after 14 years of the Tories, the South Belfast and Mid Down MP is ambivalent about the SDLP sister party’s performance in its first six months.
“Like a lot of people I had high expectations,” Ms Hanna says, adding that she’s supportive of getting more money into the public finances.
“But, y’know, some of their decisions I find genuinely very curious and I don’t think they’re being radical enough with the size of mandate they have – and I don’t think they are communicating sufficiently well. Sometimes they do things that are quite constructive, and you wouldn’t know unless you really went looking for it.”
But it is on Gaza where she is most at odds with the British government and Keir Starmer in particular, arguing that it is “doing quite serious damage to the perception of the Labour Party”.
“The apparent lack of urgency on Gaza by the UK government is creating a gulf in values that will be very hard for Labour to bridge,” she says.
“In reality, they have made substantial policy changes, like re-funding UNRWA, limiting arms sales and several sanctions relating to West Bank settlements, but I don’t think people are hearing the passion and urgency they feel coming from the Labour front bench.
“We know what full sanctions looks like – the UK have rightly applied them on Russia – so I don’t understand the much lighter approach on Israel.”
Ms Hanna is equally disappointed by the Biden administration’s response to Gaza and fully supports her predecessor’s boycott of last year’s St Patrick’s Day White House celebrations.
She hopes – but doubts – there’ll be a “just resolution” of the situation in Palestine by mid-March but “certainly won’t be” alongside the freshly inaugurated US president toasting the shamrock.
“I think politics shouldn’t just be about gestures and symbols, but sometimes they’re important.”
More positive than Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, she says, is the gains made by the Social Democrats in the Republic, who now have 11 seats in the Dáil, with Labour securing the same number.
The SDLP leader says she’s very excited by the “widening social democratic vista that opened up at the last election”.
However, while there appear to be obvious synergies emerging between Holly Cairns’ party and the SDLP, Ms Hanna rules out any formal cross-border alliances of the sort pursued by Mr Eastwood with Fianna Fáil.
Instead, the party will be “engaging broadly” with southern parties rather than one specifically, as well as the next government.
“It’s about trying to use our influence both on the day-to-day issues to protect and further the interests of the people we represent, and the region as a whole, and also to get them to be more proactive on, as Leo Varadkar put it, making unity an objective rather than an aspiration,” she says.
The South Belfast and Mid-Down MP is hopeful that on foot of manifesto commitments by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael there will be a “change in pace” in relation to planning for Irish unity, acknowledging what she describes as a “substantial difference in the perception of both the pace and plausibility of constitutional change” on different sides of the border.
“We’re in very different places, north and south – in the north many of us talking about it daily but people in the south aren’t,” she says.
While dedicated to realising a “new Ireland”, Ms Hanna believes there is too much focus on the timing of a referendum.
“I think there’s been an obsession in northern nationalism about the mechanism – the when of constitutional change – rather than the why and the how,” she says.
“If you want a piece of work done, do you want it done quickly, or do you want it done properly?”
Elsewhere, her approach from her predecessor won’t differ dramatically.
“The identity of the SDLP is not going to change,” she says of comparisons with the Foyle MP’s leadership tenure.
“I just think we’re going to locate some of what we’re doing a little bit more in social democracy.
“I know sometimes that those can be pretty opaque terms for people but it’s about coherence, ambition and bringing people together – that’s making those values real for people.”
The new leader says the SDLP has had a “very solid mission” but that it’s been “poorly executed”. She therefore plans to be more “hands-on” and focus on “political organisation and the ways you connect with the electorate”.
Her party’s role as Stormont’s Opposition, she says, presents “a really good opportunity” for it to present itself as a “conduit for fresh ideas and solutions”.
She says the party’s role in the assembly is “not to be party poopers... but to make clear to people that they have every right to expect better”.
Ms Hanna argues that the since its restoration almost a year ago the Stormont executive “lacks ambition”.
“I think the vibes have been really positive and I genuinely commend the executive for creating that sense of common purpose,” she says.
“But I think it is fairly thin rule, and I think even by the fairly low standards they set themselves, it isn’t delivering change in the draft programme for government and the draft budget.”
She also laments a “total lack of interest in sustainability and reform”.
