SDLP leader criticises fallout over Bobby Sands statue row

By Rebecca Black, Press Association

SDLP leader Claire Hanna has criticised the fallout over a row concerning a statue of Bobby Sands as an attempt to “delegitimise anti-sectarian constitutional nationalism”.

The South Belfast MP slammed a “sham fight” between the DUP and Sinn Féin at Belfast City Council over the issue, and an ensuing “pile-on” on members of her party who abstained in the vote last week.

The statue to the IRA hunger striker, who was 27 when he died in 1981, was unveiled last year at the Republican Memorial Garden in Twinbrook, west Belfast, marking the 44th anniversary of the former MP’s death.

It later emerged that it had been erected without planning permission, although the council had not previously taken any action.

At the meeting on Thursday, a DUP motion which called for the matter to be “reconsidered” was passed, with support from other unionists and from the Alliance Party.

A Sinn Féin amendment seeking a review of the “current enforcement status of all such structures” across the council area was unsuccessful.

SDLP councillors abstained from the vote.

SDLP councillor Paul Doherty resigned from the party over the matter.

Doherty, who served as deputy lord mayor of Belfast, and is a councillor for west Belfast, said he understood that the statue of the IRA hunger striker “holds real significance”.

Hanna described the meeting as a “mess” and “another bun fight and sham fight” between the DUP and Sinn Féin, which her councillors had walked out of in protest.

She said she was “gutted” at Mr Doherty’s departure, describing him as a “really nice guy and valued colleague, and someone the SDLP had invested in”.

“I think it’s worth saying, all the time we spent talking about Bobby Sands, and this was something our councillors were very clear about, is stuff that is a distraction from the things that we’re not doing right on housing, health and education,” she told BBC Radio Ulster’s The Nolan Show.

“It was a DUP/Sinn Fein discussion, we tried to put down an amendment that absolutely didn’t support the DUP motion which was hypocritical in the extreme, we tried to set out an alternative that was about the fairest possible approach.

“It was a mess, it was another bun fight and sham fight… more sectarian coat-trailing.”

Ms Hanna said there was no central party whip on the issue, and that their Belfast councillors had reached that position themselves which was in line with the findings of the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition.

She criticised a “huge pile-on” on social media on SDLP councillors following the vote, during which they were called terms such as “scum” and “West Brit”.

There was a huge pile-on on SDLP people by people who have had a 50-year passion project of trying to diminish the SDLP

“I think there is a wider issue here about an attempt to delegitimise anti-sectarian constitutional nationalism,” she said.

“There was a huge pile-on on SDLP people by people who have had a 50-year passion project of trying to diminish the SDLP.

“I don’t think it’s an inconsistent position that the SDLP isn’t trying to say people can’t remember the dead. We understand how important the past is to a lot of people, we understand how important figures like Bobby Sands and comparable figures elsewhere. We’re talking about a rules-based system, and fairness.”

She said: “Those of us who want a new Ireland have to leave room for debate, not shutting down different views, not calling people scum, not calling them West Brits.

“We are a party who believes in getting to a new Ireland through dialogue, through pluralism, through incorporating different views.”