Northern Ireland

Naomi Long believes Stormont deal unlikely in the short-term

Naomi Long believes the parties face an 'uphill battle' to secure agreement before the end of the month. Picture by Mal McCann
Naomi Long believes the parties face an 'uphill battle' to secure agreement before the end of the month. Picture by Mal McCann Naomi Long believes the parties face an 'uphill battle' to secure agreement before the end of the month. Picture by Mal McCann

NAOMI Long believes there is little prospect of a breakthrough in the Stormont negotiations before the end of this month.

The Alliance leader told The Irish News that while the tone of the talks was largely positive, she said there was "tension and a lack of trust" at the heart of the process, meaning securing a deal before the end of the month would be an "uphill battle".

Her relatively bleak assessment will disappoint the two governments who had hoped that agreement could be struck on restoring the institutions inside the next fortnight.

It is understood that if a deal is not signed off before the end of the month then the process will be suspended until the autumn.

"To be blunt, as far as agreement before the summer goes, I think the deck is heavily stacked against us," Mrs Long said, citing a variety of impediments to a deal, ranging from the Brexit extension to the change of prime minister and subsequent uncertainty over Secretary of State Karen Bradley's future.

"If I really had to call it – I think it can be done by the end of June and I believe it should be done by the end of June, but I think it possibly won't be done by the end of June and that would be a shame."

She said the process's key protagonists were "not engaging in manner you'd expect if we were approaching crunch time".

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Fresh from her party's double success in the European and local government elections, the Alliance MEP said the surge in support for her party could be attributed in part to people's frustration with Stormont's dormancy, as well as "disaffection with parties who make every election about the constitutional question".

Mrs Long rejected Martina Anderson's post-election analysis in which she claimed many Sinn Féin supporters had 'loaned' Alliance their vote safe in the knowledge that the republican candidate would win a seat.

She points out that as the last MEP elected, the Sinn Féin candidate had no surplus votes to transfer.

"I have no doubt that there were people who previously voted Sinn Féin who voted Alliance – some of them did because they thought Martina had a cast iron guarantee of a seat and some of them did it because they said they were fed up with Sinn Féin," she said.

"There is a dynamic – Sinn Féin didn't only have a slight dip in their election here, they'd a bad election Ireland wide, so they can't say they lent everybody their votes."

In relation to the Tory leadership contest, Mrs Long appears more wary of Michael Gove as a future prime minister than bookies' favourite Boris Johnson.

She characterised the former foreign secretary as being "in same mould as Trump – you either laugh or you cry".

"I think Boris is an opportunist – I think he will say what is required to get himself into Number 10 and to become prime minister but once he is there he will say what he likes," she said.

"He is less of an ideological Brexiteer than many of his colleagues and has used Brexit as a mechanism to become prime minister."

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Her suspicion of Mr Gove stems from the environment minister's opinions on Northern Ireland.

"Michael Gove would not just be a pro-active, pro-union prime minister, he's an integrationist and anti-devolutionist who vehemently opposed the Good Friday Agreement," she says.

The Alliance leader's favoured candidate for No 10 is Rory Stewart.