Editing John Hume (section)

=== Joins in the formation of the SDLP ===
In August 1970, Hume became deputy leader of the [[Social Democratic and Labour Party]] (SDLP) which he formed with five other [[Parliament of Northern Ireland|Stormont]] MPs: [[Gerry Fitt]], [[Republican Labour Party]]; [[Austin Currie]], Nationalist Party; [[Paddy Devlin]], Northern Ireland Labour Party; and independents, NICRA activists [[Ivan Cooper]] and [[Paddy O'Hanlon|Paddy O’Hanlon]].

According to Devlin, this formation had not been Hume's first choice. In June 1970, Hume had broken with others in the group in supporting Eddie McAteer, as the Westminster challenger to the Unionist for [[Londonderry (UK Parliament constituency)|Londonderry]]. The others were of the view that the civil-rights campaigner [[Claude Wilton]] was the more credible candidate. They believed a Protestant, who, as an [[Ulster Liberal Party|Ulster Liberal]], had taken more than a third of the vote in the constituency the year before,<ref>Claude Wilton obituary, ''Liberal Democrat News'', 3 October 2008.</ref> had "just the sort of cross-community support" they were aiming to attract "as the bedrock" of their new party. Hume had been meeting with McAteer's Nationalists and with [[Gerry Quigley]]'s [[National Democratic Party (Northern Ireland)|National Democratic Party]], and was pulled back to the Stormont group only when they announced that they were going ahead with a new party under the leadership of Fitt.<ref name=":18" />{{rp|140–141}} Hume proposed that it be called the "Social Democratic Party", but Fitt and Devlin had insisted that without "Labour" in its title, the party would not be acceptable to their working-class voters in Belfast.<ref name=":7" />{{rp|89}}

Not embraced in the new party was [[Bernadette Devlin McAliskey|Bernadette Devlin]]. Devlin had made international headlines, aged 21, as the youngest MP to enter the British [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] following her victory in April 1969 as the "Unity" candidate in a [[Mid Ulster (UK Parliament constituency)|Mid Ulster]] [[1969 Mid Ulster by-election|by-election]], and again in December when given a six-months sentence for her role in the defence of the Bogside. Viewing her as having gone "wholly over to the [[International Socialists (UK)|International Socialists]] in Britain", Hume described her as a "disaster".<ref name=":7" />{{rp|73}}

Neither did the new party extend to those, previously pro-O'Neill unionists, nationalists and rights activists, who in April 1970 formed the [[Alliance Party of Northern Ireland|Alliance Party]]. They had courted Hume, but he refused the invitation to join their cross-community grouping.<ref name=":7" />{{rp|84–85}} With his colleagues, Hume insisted that, like Alliance, they would prioritise the socio-economic above the constitutional question. While they were committed to "eventual" Irish unification—to a new all-Ireland constitution that would provide "the framework for the emergence of a just, egalitarian and secular society"<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Campbell |first=Sarah |date=2013 |title=New Nationalism? The S.D.L.P. and the creation of a socialist and labour party in Northern Ireland, 1969-75 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43654444 |journal=Irish Historical Studies |volume=38 |issue=151 |pages=(422–438) 422 |doi=10.1017/S0021121400001577 |issn=0021-1214 |jstor=43654444 |s2cid=162974539}}</ref>—this would be on the basis of "the consent of the majority of the people in the North and in the South".<ref name=":18" />{{rp|142}}  As a further token of their cross-community ''bona fides'', Hume cited the fact that Cooper, among other founding members, was Protestant, evidence, he suggested, that "the important issue" for the party was "human rights not religion".<ref name=":0" />{{rp|57}}

In June 1971, while he appeared to join his colleagues in responding positively to the offer of Prime Minister [[Brian Faulkner]] to more fully engage them in parliament through committees,<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Kelly |first=Henry |title=How Stormont Fell |date=1972 |publisher=Gill and Macmillan |location=Dublin |publication-date=1972 |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|36–42}} Hume suggested to party activists that it was time to consider scrapping the [[Government of Ireland Act 1920]].<ref name=":7" />{{rp|93}} With Fitt, Devlin was wary of what he called "the old nationalist knee-jerk of abstention", and of appearing to give the "gunmen" a mandate.<ref name=":18" />{{rp|155–156, 138}}  But when in July the Unionist government refused to authorise a public inquiry into the fatal shooting by the [[British Army]] of two men in Derry, Hume carried the day and led the SDLP out of Stormont, declaring it unreformable.<ref name=":8" />{{rp|45–55}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mulholland |first=Marc |date=2006 |title=The End of Stormont and imposition of direct rule in 1972 |url=https://www.gale.com/binaries/content/assets/au-resources-in-product/northernireland_essay_stormont.pdf}}</ref>