Claire Hanna.

Hanna's most striking recent move came in April, when she backed a Privileges Committee referral against Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the Peter Mandelson appointment — voting with the Conservatives, DUP and SNP against a Labour three-line whip to kill the motion. As SDLP leader, she has simultaneously been pushing hard on Northern Ireland-specific issues: urging a coordinated Executive response to the Langdale Report on systemic failings, calling out HMRC over child benefit penalties hitting constituents who cross the border into Dublin, and writing to Executive party leaders to press for Stormont reform. Her core argument, made publicly at the SDLP conference and in Slugger O'Toole coverage, is that devolved government in Northern Ireland can and must do more.

Her participation rate — 20% of Commons votes — sits well below the average, though this is typical for Northern Ireland MPs who focus heavily on devolved matters and whose party holds only a handful of seats. Where she does vote, she is a 100% party-line voter with no rebel votes beyond the Privileges division. Her stance profile shows consistent support for workers' rights, welfare expansion, climate action and Windsor Framework implementation. Her 77 parliamentary contributions span economy, defence, fiscal policy and social care, with Northern Ireland angles running through much of her work. She sits on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, which frames her scrutiny role.

Two deviations from her own party average stand out: she is notably cooler on child online safety measures and progressive taxation than the SDLP norm. Voting data covers 116 divisions, a sufficient sample for the stance patterns above. News sentiment over the past 90 days is too thin to characterise reliably.