SDLP splits from Fianna Fáil just before joint call for Northern Ireland inclusion in Irish presidential elections

The two parties issued a joint statement calling to extend the voting franchise to NI on Monday at 5:30pm - issued by the Fianna Fail press office.

However it is now reported that SDLP leader Colum Eastwood had already told party members in Belfast at the weekend that the partnership between the two parties was over.

It is reported that the decision came as the SDLP examined poor Assembly election results. Mr Eastwood told members that the party must move forward “standing on its own two feet”.

He made the announcement to 250 delegates at an extraordinary general meeting of his party, held to discuss the findings of an internal review into its poor Assembly election performance.

The meeting was held in Belfast at the weekend, the Belfast Telegraph reported.

Throughout 2018 there were rumours that there would be a formal merger between the two parties, however senior SDLP figures told the News Letter that they had no knowledge of what was happening on the matter at the time.

In January 2019, Colum Eastwood and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin stood shoulder-to-shoulder in Belfast and presented their partnership as a move which would help break “the cycle of vacuum and division which has failed our people”.

The SDLP and Fianna Fáil formed the link officially in January 2019, when it was described by Mr Eastwood as a “big step” in the SDLP’s history.

Some form of partnership had been on the cards for years before then, but once in place it was criticised by some SDLP members.

Claire Hanna subsequently quit as party Brexit spokesperson but remained as an SDLP MLA before being elected as the SDLP MP for South Belfast in December 2019.

Fianna Fáil TD Éamon Ó Cuív tweeted that the decision needed to “open a debate in Fianna Fáil about our future direction towards being a truly all-Ireland party”.

The News Letter contacted the SDLP and Fianna Fail but both declined to offer any comment.