Dr Alasdair McDonnell (born 1 September 1949) is an Irish politician who is a member of the

Social Democratic and Labour Party The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland ...

(SDLP), and was its leader from 2011 to 2015. He was the Member of Parliament for Belfast South from 2005 to 2017 and also a

Member of the Legislative Assembly A member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to a legislative assembly. Most often, the term refers to a subnational assembly such as that of a state, province, or territory of a country. ...

of Northern Ireland for Belfast South from 1998 to 2015.

Political career

McDonnell's first involvement with

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

came when he joined the National Democrats and stood as the party candidate in the 1970 election in North Antrim and lost to Ian Paisley. McDonnell first won election to

Belfast City Council Belfast City Council ( ga, Comhairle Cathrach Bhéal Feirste) is the local authority with responsibility for part of the city of Belfast, the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. The Council serves an estimated population of (), the ...

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...

, representing Belfast "Area A" which included the

Short Strand The Short Strand ( ga, an Trá Ghearr) is a working class, inner city area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a mainly Catholic and Irish nationalist enclave surrounded by the mainly Protestant and unionist East Belfast. It is on the east ba ...

and Upper Ormeau areas. He lost his council seat in a surprise result in

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...

but returned in

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

and served as the first Catholic Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1995–96. He first stood for the

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

constituency of South Belfast in the 1979 general election and subsequently contested the constituency at each subsequent general election, though not in the 1986 by-election (caused by the resignation of Unionist MPs in protest at the Anglo Irish Agreement). He was also elected from the constituency to the Northern Ireland Peace Forum in 1996 and the Northern Ireland Assembly in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

and 2003. In 2004 he became his party's deputy leader. In the 2005 general election McDonnell generated one of the most sensational results in Northern Ireland when he won South Belfast, primarily due to a split in the unionist vote. He received 10,339 votes while the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) candidate Jimmy Spratt received 9,104 votes and

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule m ...

candidate Michael McGimpsey received 7,263 votes. He was then re-elected by an increased majority in the 2010 general election. On 5 November 2011, he was elected leader of the SDLP at its conference in Belfast, succeeding Margaret Ritchie. In a 2012 interview with ''

The News Letter The ''News Letter'' is one of Northern Ireland's main daily newspapers, published from Monday to Saturday. It is the world's oldest English-language general daily newspaper still in publication, having first been printed in 1737. The newspape ...

'', McDonnell criticised

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...

. He said the party were run along "Soviet style" lines where there was a military structure and where former terrorists were being placed into positions of power. He also claimed many people voting for Sinn Féin were doing so as an act of defiance. As SDLP chief, McDonnell described the terms of the

Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies The 2013 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, also known as the sixth Review, or just boundary changes, was an ultimately unfruitful cycle of the process by which constituencies of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom are reviewe ...

, a seemingly blocked plan to reduce the number of MPs in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

by 50 (including two from Northern Ireland) to 600, as "a bureaucratic numbers game initiated by the Tories for purely party political advantage". In June 2013, the SDLP abstained during the vote on the Civil Service (Special Advisers) Bill in Stormont, ensuring its passing. This led to claims from

that the SDLP was endorsing a "hierarchy of victims"' agenda and abandoning the principles of the

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...

. Despite the reported claims from Sinn Féin that it was inevitable that someone would mount a legal challenge to "what republicans view as a discriminatory law" no such challenge has since emerged. In the 2015 United Kingdom general election he stood again in Belfast South and was returned on 24.5% of the vote, the lowest ever vote share recorded by a successful MP in any part of the UK. On 14 November 2015, McDonnell lost the leadership contest held at the SDLP's annual conference. His successor as leader of the party,

Colum Eastwood Colum Eastwood (born 30 April 1983) is an Irish nationalist politician serving as Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) since 2015. He has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Foyle since 2019, served in Northern Irel ...

, won with 172 votes to the 133 that McDonnell received. On 8 June 2017, McDonnell lost his South Belfast seat to

Emma Little-Pengelly Emma Little-Pengelly (born 31 December 1979) is a Northern Irish barrister and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician. She has been a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Lagan Valley since 12 May 2022 when she was co-opted to re ...

(DUP) in the 2017 general election, despite increasing his vote from 2015.

References

External links

Official website
*
Profile
stratagem-ni.com {{DEFAULTSORT:McDonnell, Alasdair 1949 births Living people Members of Belfast City Council Members of the Northern Ireland Forum Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Belfast constituencies (since 1922) National Democratic Party (Northern Ireland) politicians Northern Ireland MLAs 1998–2003 Northern Ireland MLAs 2003–2007 Northern Ireland MLAs 2007–2011 Northern Ireland MLAs 2011–2016 People from Cushendall Social Democratic and Labour Party MLAs Social Democratic and Labour Party MPs (UK) UK MPs 2005–2010 UK MPs 2010–2015 UK MPs 2015–2017