1980s
In 1979, he was replaced by John Hume as leader of the SDLP and he left the party altogether after he had agreed to constitutional talks with British Secretary of State Humphrey Atkins without any provision for an 'Irish dimension' and had then seen his decision overturned by the SDLP party conference. Like Paddy Devlin before him, he claimed the SDLP had ceased to be a socialist force.
In 1981, he opposed the hunger strikes in the Maze prison in Belfast. His seat in Westminster was targeted by Sinn Féin as well as by the SDLP. In June 1983, he lost his seat in Belfast West to Gerry Adams, in part due to competition from an SDLP candidate. The following month he was made a UK life peer as Baron Fitt, of Bell's Hill in the County of Down. His Belfast home was firebombed a month after he was made a peer and he moved to live in London.
Read more about this topic: Gerry Fitt