Sir, - Prof Paul Bew's attempt (Opinion, September 27th) to denigrate the SDLP ill becomes a commentator whose views I have come to respect, even when not in agreement with them.
His frustration at the pace of implementing the Good Friday Agreement is a feeling with which I am more than familiar. But why has he concentrated his vituperation on ourselves rather than on Sinn Fein, the DUP or any of Mr Trimble's legion of disloyal colleagues? His dismissal of the SDLP's position throughout the past 18 months without once identifying even a shred of evidence to support his thesis says more about his concern to defend David Trimble than his capacity to analyse, let alone understand, the SDLP's role since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. That role has been, quite simply, to work for its full implementation.
Most pointedly, our position was made clear in Seamus Mallon's speech to our annual conference last November, when he spelled out that the SDLP expected decommissioning and the formation and operation of all the political institutions of the agreement.
In speeches within the Assembly and in innumerable articles, leading SDLP members have emphasised the same message. In the negotiations which led to the only significant step forward taken by the Assembly, it was the SDLP's proposals on the number of government departments and their portfolios which were adopted. To these can be added our proposals for the North-South Ministerial Council, all of which have been widely welcomed. Furthermore, I defy Prof Bew to identify a single party that has researched as wide a range of policy papers as the SDLP over the past 18 months.
Prof Bew's curious and cynical comment on the Patten report as being the last of the "good things" to be dropped into "the collective maw" says more about his views on policing than on the SDLP.
Another curious notion is that of this party as being "hopelessly dependent" on David Trimble. Isn't the whole context of the agreement about building trust through mutual dependence? As the party that put forward the joint office of First and Deputy First Minister and the inclusive Executive, we believe the mutual dependence between parties to be a hopeful, not a hopeless development.
Furthermore, I should take this opportunity to point out to Prof Bew that, contrary to his article's assertion, the agreement and legislation require the joint election of the First and Deputy First Minister. Therefore Mr Trimble would need to be re-elected with cross community support along with the Deputy First Minister.
As for running scared of electoral opposition, how does he explain the party's highest ever vote in the recent European poll, or the fact that we gained the highest vote in the Assembly elections?
Finally, remarks about the SDLP and its electorate being intellectually inert and pompous can only be expected from the intellectually inert and pompous. - Yours, etc.,
Sean Farren, SDLP Assembly Member for North Antrim, Parliament Buildings, Stormont, Belfast 4.