The SDLP objective, through the Good Friday agreement, is to establish a lasting peace, a socially just society, a prosperous people and a New Ireland: a unified Ireland by the consent of the people.
This process is a long-term one, dependent on the full acceptance of all the basic concepts of the Good Friday agreement: the concepts of equality, justice, partnership, parity of esteem and tolerance of difference.
Real deep-down acceptance of these fundamentals will take time for healing, experience of working together and an environment of peace.
What we need to develop is a new covenant between the various groups of our people that will give confidence and then trust, that will enable all to view ourselves as one people, but of varied outlook, be that variation political, religious or constitutional.
The unity of Ireland is not about domination or majoritarianism; it is not about victory or defeat. These are terms of coercion, which would inevitably create counter-coercion, and a rapid fallback to community violence.
The revised Irish Constitution gives expression to the SDLP definition of Ireland as a unity of people, not just a unity of territory. That concept of Ireland as a united people was so expressed in the first principle of our party constitution, which was the unity of Ireland by consent.
That has been the bedrock of our constitutional policy since 1970. We in the SDLP foresaw, and aspire to, a new united Ireland built upon new relationships in the entire island of Ireland, built on consent. No victories, no defeats for anyone.
This new Ireland must be a welcoming place for all: each has to feel wanted and acceptable; it must be a place where expatriates can return. This viable and vibrant new Ireland cannot be achieved by coercion.
It cannot be achieved by the policies of Sinn Fein, based on crude majority rule, striving towards a 32-county socialist republic based on outdated social doctrines of the 19th century; nor can it be a new Ireland where its people are contemptuous of civil and criminal law; nor can it be an Ireland withdrawn and isolated from the community of Europe.
Yet these are the policies promoted by Sinn Fein.
However, the new obstacle to that new and united Ireland is the latest political mantra from Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein now says that its idea of an enforced united Ireland can be achieved within 10 years based on a sustained Catholic birth-rate providing a 51 per cent electorate result within that period.
How crude and how unreal can they get? Yet this is their basis for endeavouring to become the "dominant" force in nationalist politics.
Has Sinn Fein so little understanding of that to which it subscribed by signing the Good Friday agreement, or was that endorsement of the agreement a cynical exercise of lip-service to the principle of non-coercion, while in reality continuing to apply oppression on the ground, behind the facade of peace?
There is some evidence that this is true. Witness the plight of the community where Sinn Fein currently dominates; where people's freedom of expression is quashed; where reporting of crime is discouraged; where intimidation and extortion are rampant; where even choice of sport and culture is restricted.
The creation of a new, peaceful, stable and prosperous Ireland shared by all cannot be achieved by a crude head count based on the religious belief of the 51 percenters. Has all the death, maiming and destruction not taught the politicians representing the paramilitaries that force will be met by force; that violence is incompatible with persuasion; that coercion, military or political, is the enemy of consent?
National unity cannot be achieved by that route. It seems incredible that Sinn Fein, and others, have not learned such an obvious lesson.
The only chance of sustaining the peace in which the cause of the unity of the Irish people can be achieved is by allowing and fostering the full concept of the democratic process, and in particular by allowing the totally free expression of individual choice at the ballot box, fully offered and freely given.
It cannot be achieved by forming pacts which ghettoise the voter into two camps; by not allowing freedom of choice, especially or against those who use or condone violence. Such a course is a frustration of the process towards a new Ireland.
The SDLP is striving to create a united nation of a united people in Ireland, with the freedom for individuals to work for their personal objectives, political and material, but having the collective responsibility of ensuring the value and wellbeing of others.
Only by following the principles of the SDLP, the belief in parity, inclusiveness and partnership, can this be achieved.
This objective of a new Ireland cannot possibly be progressed, never mind achieved, by the "vision" of Sinn Fein of a 32-county socialist republic, divorced from the European Union and isolated by internal tensions and conflict. There is no future for Ireland in these policies.
The voter in the North will soon be given the chance to do two things. First, to give a new commitment to the new institutions, and the new political process of devolved responsibility.
We have had the first tentative taste after a quarter-century of actual self-government. We have experienced the early work of the North-South Ministerial Council and its sectoral bodies, and thus glimpsed the potential to change the way in which Ireland, and its needs, can be administered.
Each voter will be called upon to give a broad assent to the agreement by supporting it. One need not agree with every last detail of the agreement, but simply endorse its broad thrust.
We know only too well that certain sections of our community had to carry a greater burden than others with respect to the agreement.
Notwithstanding this, their support is now essential. These elections will settle this matter for real. Do we progress with what we have achieved, or do we create another deeper political vacuum to be filled by the opponents of democracy and the purveyors of death? This decision to sustain the institutions will largely fall on the shoulders of the unionist voter.
But second, the nationalist community has to make a clear decision whether to support the SDLP and strengthen its mandate to continue with the real peace process, based on what the SDLP has delivered, and based on our vision of a new Ireland, because in reality only the SDLP has kept faith with its promises.
Only the SDLP's clarity of purpose and opposition to any form of intimidation or coercion can confidently deliver that new Ireland at peace with itself, and at peace with the world.
Eddie McGrady MP is a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of Northern Ireland and is Chief Whip of the Social Democratic and Labour Party