{"id":622525,"date":"2026-09-12T14:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T14:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/622525\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T14:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T14:52:16","slug":"sdlp-leader-says-new-ireland-is-on-the-way-despite-andy-burnham-border-poll-comments-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/622525\/","title":{"rendered":"SDLP leader says \u2018new Ireland\u2019 is on the way despite Andy Burnham Border poll comments \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cdirection of travel\u201d towards constitutional change is \u201cclear\u201d, the SDLP<\/a> leader Claire Hanna<\/a> has told her party conference. <\/p>\n

\u201cA new Ireland isn\u2019t just on the table, it\u2019s on the move,\u201d she told delegates in Belfast on Saturday, in language which deliberately echoed the recent comment by the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham<\/a>, that a Border poll on Irish unity was \u201coff the table<\/a>\u201d. <\/p>\n

Hanna said \u201cmore and more people are talking about our constitutional future\u201d and it was \u201cbecoming clearer by the day that the future of this island is changing\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t just take it from me, take it from the leader of the free world,\u201d she said, in a reference to US president Donald Trump. <\/p>\n

Hanna took to her feet in Belfast shortly after Trump, who arrived in Ireland on Saturday morning, told reporters he supported a united Ireland, saying \u201cI\u2019d love to see it unified\u201d and it would be \u201ca fantastic thing … a great thing\u201d.<\/p>\n

In her speech to the conference, Hanna acknowledged the US president\u2019s presence on the island and reassured delegates: \u201cDon\u2019t worry, we\u2019ve checked. He\u2019s not coming here. It\u2019s his turn to boycott us. <\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump, in the last hour, has announced that he is in favour of united Ireland. \u201cTurns out he\u2019s not as orange as he looks,\u201d she said, in an allusion to the Orange Order. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure if anybody\u2019s checked on the DUP,\u201d she said. \u201cI suspect they\u2019re burning those Trump flags as we speak.\u201d <\/p>\n

But, she said, Trump\u2019s comments underlined \u201cas clearly as anything that change is happening, whether some parties here want to acknowledge it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018It\u2019s a mess\u2019: To collapse Stormont now would benefit no one, but it cannot stay the sameOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Emphasising how the SDLP was \u201cshaping\u201d the momentum towards unity, and in an implicit criticism of Sinn F\u00e9in, she said \u201cwe\u2019re not just plucking dates for a Border poll out of the air, we\u2019re doing the work, were building something different, something better and something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about how it works, how we pay for it, how we protect rights and how we make sure that this change works for everybody, because the biggest question isn\u2019t what date, the biggest question is why, it\u2019s how … it\u2019s who. <\/p>\n

\u201cWho do you trust to take you there?\u201d she said. \u201cWho do you trust to make Dublin and London understand that preparing can no longer be put off?\u201d<\/p>\n

The SDLP, she said, was \u201cbuilding a new Ireland, with a better Ireland along the way, and we need to be clear, those aren\u2019t competing projects. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re the same journey \u2013 reconciliation and constitutional change, improving life right now and setting up the future because we know you don\u2019t get to a modern, plural new nation by running this place as a basket case.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a wide-ranging speech, Hanna also emphasised the achievements of the SDLP in Opposition at Stormont, including that \u201creal institutional reform on Stormont is now very much on the table\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe turned years of \u2018something must be done\u2019 into a mandated plan for change,\u201d she said. \u201cWe turned \u2018that\u2019ll never happen\u2019 into Dublin and London now pressing the draggers so that an escape from the culture of vetoes and collapses is finally in sight.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was deeply critical of the Executive parties\u2019 record in government, saying that the \u201cearly promise has already evaporated\u201d and called on voters not to choose \u201canother half decade lost to dysfunction and dither\u201d when voting in the next Assembly election, expected in May. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all in government, they all have ministers, they all have power, and they have all had the chance and the responsibility to use it as the excuses pile up, the time slips away, and that\u2019s another five years this region is never getting back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cdirection of travel\u201d towards constitutional change is \u201cclear\u201d, the SDLP leader Claire Hanna has told her party…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85530,209794,969,14063,61,60,43,18254,3415,83876],"class_list":["post-622525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-andy-burnham","tag-claire-hanna","tag-donald-trump","tag-dup-links","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-orange-order","tag-sinn-fein","tag-social-democratic-and-labour-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}