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“Culture war” politics is opening a lot of people’s eyes to a different constitutional future for Northern Ireland, SDLP leader Claire Hanna has said.

Ms Hanna said it had been a “bleak summer in part” in the region referring to the violence in the streets of Belfast in June, contrasted with the Fleadh in the city at the beginning of August.

August also saw the resurgence of the Drumcree parade issue, as the Portadown District of the Orange Order renewed efforts to secure a long-refused return route through the largely nationalist Garvaghy road.

Ms Hanna described the dispute as a “Back to the Future moment that nobody wants and nobody needs”.

“I think that unionism, particularly the DUP, needs to get to grips with the modern Northern Ireland that we’re in and the shared society that we’re in and the appetite to move forward and not go and dig up rows from decades ago,” she said.

“I just don’t see an appetite and I think there are important voices from across the community, including people who have a strong tradition in Orange Orders and with marching, to say that this is a classic ‘all tactics, no strategy’ move that alienates people further from the Orange Order.

“I was at Garvaghy Road yesterday and meeting with a number of residents, and there is just a weariness.

“People just don’t want to be used as a staging post or some sort of field for a culture war.”

The MP for South Belfast added: “We can clearly see how much that sense of constantly rehashing the past and rehashing the most binary and divisive parts of life and politics turn people off in their droves.

“People find that type of politics suffocating, and it actively hinders our ability or seemingly our willingness, to deal with the actual problems of today.

“What I think it’s doing, it is opening a lot of people’s eyes to wanting a different future, including a different constitutional future.

“People maybe see the lack of leadership that they’re getting from a variety of parties, particularly from political unionism, they see the world changing.

“They see the reality of their lives, and then they see this outsized focus on culture war issues and what I think people are thinking about is ‘do I want to invest my vote and my future with a party that just makes mad decision after mad decision?’

“Things like Brexit and all the mismanagement of that, and then just the failure to critically analyse things, the failure to prioritise what’s important.

“And I think it is one of the reasons many many people are looking at the future in a different way.”

The party established their New Ireland Commission in 2021 to facilitate discussions on the possibilities of future constitutional change and hosted a conference in June focused on relations between the island of Ireland and Britain.

“We are investing a lot of time and deep thought in engaging with people who haven’t come from traditional nationalist communities, traditional nationalist households, or ways of thinking, but who are newly open to the conversation on a new Ireland,” Ms Hanna said.

“We think we have a kind of a heritage in talking to people about those issues and bringing people along, and it is a big part of the SDLP.”

She added: “This isn’t a political football or a hot potato, it’s something for all of us, and that it’s exciting and quite clearly a new Ireland is not just on the table; it is on the move in a lot of ways.”

Prime Minister Andy Burnham caused upset to some nationalists and republicans when he said in his first visit to Northern Ireland that a United Ireland is “off the table”.

Ms Hanna said some of the reaction was people “kind of losing their minds”.

“We do have a little sub industry here of being very upset about other people’s constitutional views,” she said.

“I’m a realist.

“I don’t expect a UK Prime Minister to rock up in his first month and say ‘yes can I talk about the breakup of the union?’

“Nor do I expect them to do the work for us.

“That’s our job, those of us who want constitutional change to persuade and to reassure those who either don’t or are anxious, and that’s what the SDLP is doing, not losing our minds about other people’s pronouncements on it.”

The SDLP leader said the conversation on Irish unity can have “a hyper focus on what date rather than the why and the how”.

“Crucially, I think as more people are asking who do you trust to have those negotiations?

“Who do you trust to do the work, and not just talk about the dates?

“And who do you trust to protect the interests, not just of the strongest believers, not just of the loudest voices, but of everybody who’s going to be affected by that?

“And I hope to make the case over the next year to people that that would be the SDLP.”