SOUTH BELFAST AND Mid Down MP Claire Hanna has announced her intention to seek the leadership of the SDLP following the resignation of Colum Eastwood earlier this week. 

In a statement, Hanna thanked Eastwood for “his service during turbulent times, including 10 elections in just 9 years”.

Eastwood announced on Thursday that he was standing down as leader, saying it was time for a change at the top of the party.

He will formally resign at the party conference in October and already endorsed Hanna as his potential successor on Friday.

Eastwood said he had “absolutely no doubt in my mind that Claire Hanna has what it takes to be the leader of the SDLP”.

“She would be far and away the best option for the members,” he added.

“I know Colum will continue to serve people as a passionate MP for Derry, and play a substantial future role through our New Ireland Commission,” she said.

She said that people are “losing faith that Stormont and politics more generally will deliver for them”.

She said people in Northern Ireland are faced with failing public services and “a politics driven by division, dysfunction and pettiness”, while noting that the SDLP had faced challenges.

She said the party must have “the humility to recognise that we have to work harder to resonate with people and earn future electoral success”.

“We have to listen more, organise better, and offer a fresh, compelling message of optimism and clarity of purpose.

Hanna said the party needs to more actively engage voters, including those who have grown up outside the nationalist tradition,”who share our social democratic and anti-sectarian principles”

She said many of those voters “are curious about the potential of a reconciled new Ireland”. 

She said the SDLP must make arguments for the benefits of constitutional change in the North. 

“We need to recognise that too many towns and neighbourhoods don’t see or feel SDLP’s effort locally,” she said.

She added that “no other party is fundamentally committed to tackling all three of the major divisions – inequality, sectarianism & partition – limiting our region’s potential”.