Who is SDLP leader Colum Eastwood?
BBC/PAColum Eastwood: The basics
Date of birth: 30 April 1983
Family: Married Rachael in 2013, separated in 2022. Two daughters
Education: St Columb's College and Liverpool University (did not graduate)
Career: Mayor of Derry 2010-2011, assembly member for Foyle 2011-2019, SDLP leader since 2015, MP since 2019
Parliamentary constituency: Foyle
Who is he?
Colum Eastwood may only be 41, but he is a veteran of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.
The 2015 party conference - where he was elected leader - was his 18th and he has held elected office for almost two decades.
This election will see him try to hold his home constituency of Foyle, which he won with a whopping majority in 2019.
What did Colum Eastwood do before politics?
Born in Londonderry in 1983, Mr Eastwood was educated at St Columb's College in the city which counts two Nobel laureates - poet Seamus Heaney and long-time SDLP leader John Hume - among its former pupils.
He has said Mr Hume and his deputy Seamus Mallon were among the figures who drew him to the party, which he joined in 1998 when he was still a teenager, to campaign for the Good Friday Agreement.
In 2005, just a week after his 22nd birthday, he was elected to Derry City Council and between 2010 and 2011 served as the city's youngest ever mayor.
That was followed in May 2011 by election to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
When did he become SDLP leader?
In 2015 he challenged incumbent Alasdair McDonnell for the leadership of the party, ousting him by 172 votes to 133.
His election as leader brought attention back to a controversial moment in 2012, when he carried the coffin of a personal friend at a paramilitary-style funeral.
He said he was acting in a personal capacity and defended his decision.
In the most recent of a long line of electoral fights, the black belt in jiu-jitsu stood in 2019 as the Westminster candidate in Foyle, attempting to win the seat back from Sinn Féin who had won it for the first time by a narrow margin at the previous election.
He won it with a majority of 17,110.
Where is the SDLP at the moment?
At the last Westminster election in 2019 the SDLP went into the campaign with no seats after a disappointing showing in 2017 when all three of its MPs were defeated.
Mr Eastwood's victory in Foyle was accompanied by Claire Hanna's election in Belfast South - also with a large majority.
But the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election was bruising for the SDLP as it lost four seats to finish with eight, meaning it had to go into opposition at Stormont.
The 2023 council poll was similarly tough as Mr Eastwood's party lost 20 seats, dropping to 39 overall.
The fortunes of the SDLP at this election are strongly linked to Mr Eastwood's own performance in Foyle, given that he is both the party leader and one of its two sitting MPs.
His majority was large in 2019 but the SDLP lost the seat in 2017 and in previous elections, which it won, the majorities of Mr Eastwood's predecessors were much smaller than his currently is.
Expect him to talk a lot about policy areas where he will argue the SDLP has made a difference by taking its seats in the Commons in contrast to Sinn Féin.
