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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Brendan Hughes

SDLP to hold special meeting to discuss internal review of Stormont election performance

The SDLP is to hold a special meeting next month to discuss the findings of an internal review of the party's bruising Stormont Assembly election performance.

The extraordinary general meeting is scheduled to be held on Saturday September 24 at the Clayton Hotel in Belfast city centre, party sources told Belfast Live.

SDLP South Belfast MP Claire Hanna has been leading the internal review of May's election in which the party suffered significant losses.

Read more: Councillor who switched from Greens to SDLP asked Alliance about joining weeks earlier

Election candidates and party members are understood to have shared their views as part of a consultation conducted over the course of the summer.

The SDLP said the review aims to "modernise party structures and refresh the SDLP's vision and values".

In May the SDLP dropped from third-largest party at Stormont to fifth-largest after losing four MLAs, including deputy leader Nichola Mallon.

Now with eight seats in the Assembly, the party has taken up the role of the official opposition after losing automatic entitlement to a ministerial post in a new power-sharing Executive.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has notified members of next month's meeting, which will take place ahead of a full party conference scheduled for later in the year.

It is believed the internal review may examine simplifying party structures by potentially reducing the number of individual branches across each of the 18 Stormont constituencies.

The party is also likely to be re-assessing its public messaging ahead of local government elections in May next year.

In a statement an SDLP spokesman told Belfast Live: "Following May's Assembly election, the SDLP leader appointed Claire Hanna MP to lead a broad internal review examining party organisation and campaigning capacity among the party membership.

"The review recommendations, which seek to modernise party structures and refresh the SDLP's vision and values, will be presented to party members at a meeting next month.

"The SDLP leadership looks forward to engaging with party members to build a stronger movement that addresses the challenges facing workers, families and our society as we build a reconciled community and a new Ireland together."

The Assembly poll saw the SDLP's vote share drop by almost three points to 9.1% amid an Alliance surge and a shift to Sinn Féin.

A recent LucidTalk poll for the Belfast Telegraph suggested a further hardening of support behind Sinn Féin, the DUP and Alliance as Stormont's three largest parties.

It comes as the DUP continues to block the restoration of Stormont power-sharing in protest over Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.

The SDLP's extraordinary general meeting emerges after its political director stepped down last month.

Carl Whyte, a councillor for the party in Belfast, said he had decided to focus his "energy and effort on rebuilding in the north and west of the city in particular".

During the election count in May, Mr Eastwood argued the nationalist electorate may have "lent" their vote to Sinn Féin to secure the First Minister post.

It followed a campaign in which the DUP and UUP had refused to confirm whether they would take up the Deputy First Minister post if Sinn Féin became the largest party.

Sinn Féin rubbished that idea, with Finance Minister Conor Murphy saying that he had heard the same analysis in the 1990s.

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