Northern Ireland

Naomi Long: Election show there is a progressive movement in Northern Ireland

              The Alliance Party's Nuala McAllister (centre) celebrates as she is elected for the Castle area during the local government election count at Belfast City Hall. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday May 4, 2019. See PA story ULSTER Poll. Photo credit should read: Mark Marlow/PA Wire
The Alliance Party's Nuala McAllister (centre) celebrates as she is elected for the Castle area during the local government election count at Belfast City Hall. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday May 4, 2019. See PA story UL The Alliance Party's Nuala McAllister (centre) celebrates as she is elected for the Castle area during the local government election count at Belfast City Hall. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday May 4, 2019. See PA story ULSTER Poll. Photo credit should read: Mark Marlow/PA Wire

ALLIANCE leader Naomi Long has said Sinn Féin and the DUP should not ignore the message of progressive politics from the council elections as they enter fresh Stormont talks tomorrow.

Ms Long hailed her party's success at the ballot box - which saw it increase its representation across the north by 65 per cent - as "tremendous".

The party won seats in 10 of the north's 11 councils, including gains west of the Bann in Omagh and Derry.

"I have done a lot of development work since I took over as party leader, particularly in the west, but we couldn't have predicted that so many of the targets that we set would be realised," Ms Long said.

Council elections 2019: full results

She claimed a surge in support for the Green Party and People Before Profit also sends a message that unionism and nationalism is not people's priority.

"Nor is this politics of fear of 'vote for us or you'll get them'. That has broken," she said.

"It is saying that there is a progressive movement in Northern Ireland.

"The two main parties (Sinn Fein and DUP) would be very foolish to ignore that message going into the talks."

Ms Long added that she will "quietly celebrate" her party's success before preparing for the European elections later this month, where she is battled for one of the three seats.

The Green Party doubled its representation across the north's councils to eight seats, with party leader Clare Bailey saying she felt "overwhelmed" by the success.

"Regardless of our traditional cultural identities, the them and us politics, what we really need to be looking at is how we all mitigate against climate change, and that message is just being understood on the doors and over the last few days we are seeing that result coming in. It's phenomenal," she said.

After Sinn Fein emerged with the same number of council seats, the party's John O'Dowd told the BBC it was a "solid performance".

"There are areas that we clearly need to look. Derry has taken blows before and we have learned from them and came back, no doubt that will happen again," he said.

He added that the parties celebrating election victories were around "equality and rights".

"Those parties that have grown and remained steady, those parties that have entered the field are quite firm on the issue that there has to be equality at the centre of local government and the future of the executive."

DUP MLA Christopher Stalford also said his party had a "solid" set of election results despite losing eight seats.

"In a local election people feel freer to go elsewhere and express preferences than they do sometimes in the Westminster election," he said.

"Overall, particularly in Belfast, it was a good day for us."

Meanwhile, the Ulster Unionists' Doug Beattie admitted the party suffered a bad election.

"We always want to do better," he said.

"We have got major problems in Belfast and we know that.

"People are trying to spin a narrative that we have been absolutely decimated when we have 75 councillors.

"We made net gains in Newry, Mourne and Down and our vote has gone up."

The SDLP's Carl Whyte said it was battling former party members who have turned independent.

"In seven out of those eight cases we defeated the candidates and took those seats back," he said.

"People were predicting our decline and then when the ballots are counted, our vote comes out and our voters are there and they are supporting us."