The Conservative government “wrecked” Northern Ireland and “destroyed” the UK’s relationship with Dublin, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has said.
Mr Eastwood said he believed that a Labour government would be more positive for people in the North but insisted MPs from Northern Ireland needed to take their places at Westminster to exert influence.
Criticising Sinn Féin’s abstentionist policy, Mr Eastwood said “turning up to drink coffee now and again in the canteen doesn’t cut it”.
The SDLP, once the dominant force in nationalist politics in Northern Ireland, has had its position eclipsed by its republican rivals in recent elections.
However, after losing all of its MPs in the 2017 general election, the SDLP rebounded in 2019 when Mr Eastwood and Claire Hanna won in Foyle and the former Belfast South constituencies with large majorities.
In an interview with the PA news agency, Mr Eastwood said the margins would be closer in the July 4th poll but added that retaining its two seats would be a “huge victory” for his party.
He said the last time there was a Labour government, people in Northern Ireland “ended up with the Good Friday Agreement”.
Mr Eastwood said: “What we have had with 14 years of the a Tory government has been austerity, our public services being starved of opportunity, Brexit, the Legacy Act, all of those things.
“Of course, they happened in concert with the DUP when they had the whip hand between 2017 and 2019.”
He added: “The reality is anybody who knows anything about Westminster, I only learnt this a few years ago, the reality is if you are not there you don’t count, your voice isn’t heard, it’s ignored.
“We are ignored at the best of times, we have to be there to be heard.
“We have actually achieved quite a lot, even under a Tory government, I think we’d achieve a lot more under a Labour government.
“The bottom line is this election is about turning up. There is not much point in my view of running for election if you are not going to turn up after the election.
“Sinn Féin are entitled to do that but I think it is better that people turn up and do their jobs as they are elected to do.
“We’ve had enough actually of people being elected to chambers here and not turning up. I think people need to be at their work with their sleeves rolled up.”
Mr Eastwood said his party would work to ensure Northern Ireland’s voice was heard by whichever party formed the next government.
He said: “The relationship with the Dublin government needs to be reset and massively improved because the Tories have destroyed that.
“We need to see the Legacy Act repealed, we need to see a better funding settlement for Stormont. Look at the state of our health service, it is either collapsed or just about to collapse.
“Our public services are a mess, our economy is not performing.”
Mr Eastwood said he believed the SDLP’s historical relationship with Labour would enable it to exert some influence.
He said: “We are not going to make the mistake the DUP made and think their number of MPs are going to have some outsized significance.
“But what we have got is a sister party relationship with the Labour Party, years of developing and building on that relationship, I spend a lot of time speaking to Keir Starmer and other members of the shadow cabinet.
“We are there. If you are not there, if you are not seen, you just get ignored. Turning up to drink coffee now and again in the canteen doesn’t cut it.
“I genuinely believe that the voice of the north of Ireland was silenced for two years during those mad Brexit years. We put the voice of everybody else other than the DUP back into Westminster and we will do it again.”
The SDLP leader said the funding of Northern Ireland needed to be on the agenda of the next government.
He said: “The bottom line is the Tories have wrecked the place, they have wrecked the public finances, they have destroyed the economy and it isn’t just going to be as simple as turning the (funding) taps back on.
“What we’ve been saying for 10 or 15 years is that the basis on which the Executive here is funded is wrong.
“It should be funded on the basis of need and we are getting short-changed.
“That argument will have to be made, it is an argument we are making, we will continue to make it if we are elected.
“We will make it in the chamber – you can’t make it if you’re not there.”
The SDLP vote decreased in the last Northern Ireland Assembly elections as Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party in the region for the first time. However, Mr Eastwood insisted different factors would determine the Westminster election.
He said: “The last Assembly election was a mood election because people, particularly within nationalism, felt that Michelle O’Neill was being denied her rightful place as the elected first minister of Northern Ireland.
“They were right, she was. It was a disgrace and it was the DUP that was doing it.
“People came out in large numbers to send that message.
“That message has been sent, it’s been heard.
“But this (election) isn’t about that. This is about who are you going to send to Westminster.”
The SDLP is running candidates in all 18 constituencies in Northern Ireland although Mr Eastwood said resources would be focused on “three or four places where we are competitive”.
He said: “We are fighting hard to retain our two seats. We are in a fight in South Down as well. We have strong support there.
“There are other places where we have to build back after difficult elections, that is what we will be doing. We are realistic, we know the battles that we are in and that is where our resources will go.”
He added: “You have got to remember in 2017 we lost all three of our MPs. That was a big, big blow for this party.
“A huge effort went in to getting two of those back.
“We obviously got huge majorities (in 2019) and that is not going to happen this time.
“But retaining those seats after the battering we have taken over the last couple of years, I think would be a huge victory. But we are fighting for every vote.”
