1970s
In August 1970, Fitt became the first leader of a coalition of civil rights and nationalist leaders who created the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). The party was founded on high hopes - rejecting abstentionism and containing a number of prominent Protestants and without the stigma of conservatism and impotency that surrounded the old nationalist party. But already by then Northern Ireland was charging headlong towards near-civil war and the majority of unionists remained hostile.
After the collapse of Stormont in 1972 and the establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 he became deputy chief executive of the short-lived Power-Sharing Executive created by the Sunningdale Agreement. Arguments still rage over the extent to which Fitt, as opposed to John Hume, helped shape the agreement. Fitt certainly was becoming less engaged with the nationalist concerns of the majority of the SDLP.
Fitt became increasingly detached from both his own party and also became more outspoken in his condemnation of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He became a target for republican sympathisers in 1976 when they attacked his home. He became disillusioned with the handling of Northern Ireland by the British government. In 1979, he abstained from a crucial vote in the House of Commons which brought down the Labour government, citing the way that the government had failed to help the nationalist population and tried to form a deal with the Ulster Unionist Party.
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