JOHN Hume was asked to help lead the Alliance Party ahead of its formation, a new political memoir has revealed.
The former SDLP leader was touted as a potential holder of an Alliance leadership role in 1970 when public meetings were held by the precursor to the cross-community party, the New Ulster Movement (NUM).
In his new book ‘The Militant Moderates: A Memoir of the Origins and Development of the Alliance Party’, founder member Jim Hendron claims Mr Hume, then an Independent member of the Stormont parliament for Foyle, was invited to speak at a NUM meeting before being offered to spearhead a new party that aimed to recruit members from across the sectarian divide at a time when the Troubles were beginning to take hold.
However, despite expressing interest in the fledgling party, Mr Hume – a prominent Civil Rights activist at the time – declined the offer to join others in leading Alliance and went on to help found the SDLP later that same year, alongside Gerry Fitt, Paddy Devlin, Seamus Mallon, and Austin Currie.
In ‘The Militant Moderates’, Jim Hendron reveals how he urged Mr Hume not to abandon his position as an Independent at Stormont in order to adopt a nationalist designation.
“I pressed John to join us and I begged him not to forsake the reputation for independence he had built up as an Independent, to become a nationalist,” Mr Hendron said about discussions he had with Mr Hume after he addressed a packed NUM meeting at the Glenmachen Hotel in east Belfast.
“At the end of his address John Hume received a six-minute standing ovation. He and I became friends for a time and he called to our house on occasions on his way home from sessions of the Stormont Parliament,” he said.
After talks with the executive of the NUM, Mr Hendron – who would later become President of Alliance – attempted to woo Mr Hume, adding: “I was authorised by them to approach John to seek his agreement to help lead the new political party which we were preparing to launch.”
Despite the offer to work alongside unionists including Phelim O’Neill and nationalists such as Tommy Gormley who were prepared to move towards centrist politics, Mr Hume tuned down the invitation.
The book reveals that a later conversation between the pair occurred on the eve of the official Alliance launch, in which Mr Hume asked if the name of the new party contained the terms “social” “democratic” or “labour”.
Upon being told it did not, the later-Nobel Peace Prize winner revealed his own plans for the foundation of the SDLP.
