SDLP support for British Labour in peace process challenged by Rodgers

THE SDLP should reconsider its unconditional support for the British Labour Party, according to the party's spokeswoman on women's affairs, Ms Brid Rodgers.

The SDLP Upper Bann constituency representative sharply criticised the British Labour Party's role in the peace process. "The unconditional and unquestioning support which the present Labour Party has given the (British) government in its mishandling of the peace process to date has to be a matter of great concern to all of us", she told the annual meeting in Dublin of the Women's Political Association.

Ms Rodgers criticised particularly "Mr Tony Blair's total support for the government when it rejected the main proposal of the Mitchell Report in favour of the unionist proposal for an election".

She said the SDLP could not stand for "the playing of party political games at Westminster" if the peace process was being endangered. "Not only is the British government playing with our lives but now the Labour Party is.

Ms Rodgers told the attendance of about 60 women at the conference that the SDLP was in the socialist grouping at EU level and believed in socialist principles and policies. "That is why we have taken the Labour whip."

The party considered its main priority to be the peace process and could in future vote each time in the best interests of that and not as part of the Labour Party whip.

She said afterwards that her attitude to supporting Labour was her own personal view. It had not yet been discussed by the party, she said, but "people have been asking about our unconditional support for the Labour Party".

She was asked by a member of the audience about The Irish Times report that the Taoiseach had asked Mr John Hume to support the Conservative Party in the vote on the Scott report.

"I don't live in John's pocket so I don't know if that's true," she said. "The Scott report was a very serious issue. On principle it would have been very difficult for us to do anything but vote against the government. But we have to think very hard about voting with the Labour Party from now on."

In her analysis of the British government's role since the ceasefire, Ms Rodgers said that "prevarication and preconditions have been the hallmarks of their approach from the very beginning".

She acknowledged that the British Prime Minister, Mr Major, had shown courage and a "personal commitment to the peace process that was evidenced in the risk he took on the vote on the Scott report". She said, however, that "no amount of frustration at British procrastination or unionist intransigence can remotely justify bombing or murder." A commitment to exclusively democratic methods required patience, tenacity and courage in face of the inevitable delays, setbacks, roadblocks and sheer complacency. There were no short cuts.

Ms Rodgers was speaking during a session on the peace process. An Ulster Unionist councillor, Ms Sylvie McRoberts, who was also due to speak, was unable to attend for personal reasons.