Members of the SDLP in Fermanagh and West Tyrone have voiced strong concerns about a possible merger between their party and Fianna Fáil.
Details emerged in a document circulated by the Fermanagh and Omagh District Executive of the SDLP earlier this week.
Members are being asked to comment on the document before a meeting of activists later this month during which the negotiations with Micheál Martin’s party will be raised.
The paper was produced after discussions with SDLP members and supporters.
It comes after senior party member and south Belfast MLA Claire Hanna complained that there has been “no serious attempt” to engage with members about possible change.
The document reveals that members believe that media forecasts of a continued decline in the SDLP’s fortunes is having a “major destabilising impact”, along with talk of negotiating a link with Fianna Fáil.
The document said that while some members welcome talk of a link with Fianna Fáil, others are “totally opposed” to it for a variety of reasons.
It suggests that any links with the Dublin based party would “mean the loss of the soft unionist vote in local government elections.”
It also warns that a link with “any particular party in the south would lead to a splintering of SDLP in many directions – and therefore the end of the SDLP as we know it”.
The document questions the direction of SDLP policy.
“Where now sits the policy position previously adopted by SDLP of making Northern Ireland work?" it said.
“A link with Fianna Fáil would make it very difficult to win over unionist people in taking that proposition forward.
“And without that groundwork the unifying of Ireland will be a more difficult process.”
It also said the future of the party “lies in its own hands”.
“It must fight the predictions of failure and have confidence in its ability to overcome, the theme in which we have believed for almost 50 years,” it said.
Party members in Mid Ulster were due to meet leader Colum Eastwood in Cookstown last night.
Meanwhile, former Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín - who resigned from the party last year and is working to establish a new republican party - will hold the latest in a series of meetings across Ireland in the Strule Arts Centre, Omagh, Co Tyrone, on Wednesday January 9 at 7.30pm.
