Leader's speech (edited): It is my privilege and pleasure to address conference for the third time as party leader.
The first SDLP generation can lay claim to many achievements. But perhaps above all, they gave my generation - and others that have followed - renewed reason to believe in the power of peaceful democracy. And gave northern nationalism moral authority, political leverage and an equality-based social agenda.
This is a legacy that no other party can claim - no matter how hard they might try to rewrite history or forget their own past.
A generation on from civil rights and our foundation, our mission is not yet done. Our message is clear. We are:
Stronger for change because we get in there to win it.
Stronger for the agreement because we alone defend it.
Stronger for a united Ireland because only we have a strategy for it.
And stronger for democracy because we don't believe we're above the law or act as if we are the law.
For Sinn Féin, fresh new thinking is condemning dissidents as "out of touch" for doing things they used to do themselves - and still excuse when the need arises.
Sinn Féin say they don't speak for the IRA or interpret IRA statements. But Gerry Adams said the IRA didn't do the latest family hostage robbery, or the ones before it.
To those who think the IRA don't pull off robberies - they do. That's what they were doing in Adare when they killed Garda Jerry McCabe. That's what they were doing in Newry when they killed postal worker Frank Kerr. Each time Gerry denied. Each time Gerry lied. So Gerry, how can we believe you now? Why would we believe you over the Taoiseach, who has done so much for the peace process?
Why would he say what he did unless he had the clearest and most convincing Garda intelligence in front of him? Now, Mitchel said it was a crime, because the IRA didn't do it.
Then he said it wouldn't have been a crime if the IRA had done it, because the IRA don't do crime.
As for Pat Doherty, he said it was a crime, but then asked "what is a crime?" Democratic Ireland can tell you what a crime is.
Holding families hostage is a crime.
Murdering a policeman or a postman is a crime.
Abducting a mother of ten, and disappearing her body for over 30 years is a crime. Denying her the dignity of a Christian burial is as criminal as it is cruel.
Sinn Féin appear to believe that the provisional movement and its members are above the law. The truth is so much of what they say and so many of their actions are beneath contempt.
When their double-speak runs out and their lies just aren't believed, what do they seek cover in? Their mandate.
But no nationalist voted for bank robberies.
No nationalist voted for abductions or families being threatened with death.
Yet Sinn Féin are citing the mandate they got from nationalist voters to excuse, deny, dismiss all sorts of crime. To deny that the IRA have done crimes. To deny that crime even is crime. All by quoting the votes lent to them by honest, upstanding nationalists.
There's only one thing Sinn Féin are true to - their name. Sinn Féin means "Ourselves". That's all they care about. That's who and what they negotiate for. "Themselves".
So much for their Ireland of equals.
Sinn Féin talk a lot about their mandate and I respect it. But all the other parties in Ireland have mandates too, and there is no mandate greater than that given by the Irish people to the Good Friday agreement.
So let's get all the parties of all the people of Ireland together at the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. Let's affirm our support for the agreement and in face of DUP corrosion. Let's express our determination to see its institutions restored and all paramilitarism ended.
Criminality is not a "unionist issue". It is not a "British issue". It is an issue for the people of Ireland because our Good Friday agreement is in danger of being destroyed by it.
Let's set out the explicit standards of Irish democracy in the 21st century.
The time has come for us to reclaim the good name of Northern nationalism. To reclaim the agreement. To restore the democratic institutions. To return to the path the Irish people chose.
To tell the DUP (and the governments) that the DUP mandate does not override everyone else's in the North, any more than Sinn Féin's overrides everyone else's on the island.
The SDLP needs a stronger mandate if we are to prevent the mistakes, challenge the game-playing and stop the rot that has denied people what they voted for. People need to know that the strongest vote they can cast for the agreement is a vote for the SDLP.
That the best vote to force the pace on unionists and to force peace from paramilitaries is a vote for the SDLP.
People are catching on to the elaborate con played out every time. Secret talks centring exclusively on Sinn Féin and the leading unionist party of the day. Hype about "historic breakthroughs", spin about "groundbreaking moves", hopes raised for yet another "deal to end all deals". The stilted choreography of different statements and sequencing.
That's what we were getting in Spring 2003, when the elections were supposed to be happening. That's what we were getting in autumn 2003, when the elections did happen.
We got a flavour of it in last year's European election. And it is exactly what we are seeing played out again now. People are beginning to see that each time they backed the problem parties, the problem just got worse.
They are beginning to see through this pattern of failure, realising that what gets rewarded, gets repeated.
Only the SDLP has put forward positive proposals to move politics forward by returning to the agreement and all going as far as we possibly can.
Our proposals are for the end of suspension and restoration of all the institutions. Parties will then have six weeks to appoint an inclusive executive. If things happen to allow the parties do so, well and good. Sadly, in reality they won't. And when they don't, we should not sink back into deep suspension. Nor have the Assembly just scrutinising direct rule. Instead, we keep the Assembly, with all its legislative, budgetary and other powers under the agreement.
We protect the executive power model of the agreement and prevent direct rule, by having the two governments nominate 10 people from all walks of life - not civil servants - to administer the departments and look after the business of the Executive, fully accountable to the fully functioning Assembly.
If there is any good intent on the part of the DUP as far as the fundamentals of the agreement are concerned, talks on our proposals will test that. Or if, as many of us believe there is not, those talks will call their bluff.
Of course, we know others will put propositions to us.
As in our recent meeting with Tony Blair, voluntary coalition or exclusion will be among them. As with Tony Blair, we will be saying no to such a departure from the agreement.
Our proposals are the best way for parties to prevent us all from remaining excluded from democratic opportunity because of paramilitarism. It's not just that - as with silly sanctions - Sinn Féin would hope exclusion would prove politically rewarding to them. We would also ask - voluntary coalition with whom and on what terms?
With the DUP, on the basis of their failed "Comprehensive Agreement"? No way.
Victims and survivors are fed up with politicians patting them on the shoulder, but then simply shrugging their shoulders when it comes to what we do about delivering on the agreement's promise to them. No victim denies that this society needs to look to the future.
But we must deny no victim the right to tell their story, the truth of their hurt. I do not accept the argument that some have even made this week - just as we have heard before in relation to Bloody Sunday - that only when we agree something to be done for all victims, should anything be done for any victim. If we can lift a cruel cross for someone, should we not do so?
That's why Tony Blair is to be commended for sincerely, completely and publicly exonerating the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven. As we look to the elections, we owe it, not just to ourselves, but to those who look to us for help, to keep getting stronger.
Because we are stronger and we offer more.
Stronger on the right issues.
Stronger for the right reasons.
Stronger for victims.
Stronger for the agreement.
Stronger on Irish unity.
Stronger because we are straighter.
Stronger because our hands are cleaner.
Better for progress and stability.
Willing to go further for peace and democracy.
Get out on every doorstep and every street and tell the people that the time has come to reclaim the good name of Northern nationalism.
That the day has arrived when we must make good the promise to cherish all the children of the nation equally.
That ours is a better way to a better Ireland.
Get out there and fight like we have never fought before for the values we hold dear.