NAOMI Long insists that Nicola Sturgeon's recent decision to step down as leader of the SNP hasn't prompted any reflection on her own role. The Alliance leader of the past seven years says she's "far from running on empty", and with one eye on the forthcoming local government elections, the East Belfast MLA is hoping the surge in support for her party over recent years can continue on May 18.
Once the also-rans of regional politics, Alliance has now firmly established itself as Stormont's 'third force', though its celebration has been somewhat tempered by the DUP's boycott of the institutions, which means its MLAs have yet to sit proper in the assembly.
Speaking to The Irish News ahead of her party's annual conference this Saturday, Mrs Long declines to say what her target is for May's elections, stressing that she "doesn't do projections". Alliance won 53 seats in 2019, an increase of 21 on its previous showing. She makes no secret of the fact that the party is targeting Mid Ulster, the only one of the north's 11 councils where there is no Alliance representation.
"I'd like to close that gap," she says.
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"I'd like to see us grow in those areas in the west where we've already established some footholds. It might take an electoral cycle or two, but it's still what I'd like to see."
The former Belfast mayor is a supporter of local government, arguing that councils "continue to deliver", in contrast to Stormont, which is "utterly dysfunctional".
The Alliance leader's frustration at the current political impasse is palpable. If anything, Stormont's recent idleness has further fuelled her desire for reform. In the short-term, Mrs Long would like to see the cross-community vote system replaced.
"Our mandate in the last election proves that we need to reform the voting system – parallel consent devalues my vote, and the votes of those who vote for me, and that's unacceptable," she says.
"If we were talking about nationalist votes counting for less than others in this assembly, nobody would suggest we be patient and wait for another electoral cycle, they would want it reformed now."
As an illustration of how she regards the present system as flawed, the Alliance leader points to the recent effort to elect an assembly speaker, where 72 per cent of votes were cast in favour of one candidate but they failed to get elected.
"Yet when less than 72 per cent voted for the Good Friday Agreement, it passed," she says.
"So had we applied parallel consent to the Good Friday Agreement there's no guarantee we would be where we are now."
Mrs Long argues that votes should be based on a weighted majority, but on reforming the first and deputy first ministers' titles she concedes that a fresh mandate would be necessary.
"I don't think that's the kind of change that you could introduce mid-mandate, because the election result means Sinn Féin were elected as first minister and they have to be allowed to hold that post on that basis," she says.
"But in future mandates, we should seriously consider actually reflecting the nature of the job, which is co-equal positions, and get away from this kind of nonsense that we have in every election where it becomes about who tops the poll."
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With automatic entitlement to Stormont ministries, Alliance won't put any preconditions in place before entering any restored executive, its leader says.
Mrs Long says there'll be "no red lines" but she'd like to see stability and a commitment from other parties in government that they are willing to face up to what she terms "major challenges".
"We need to know that people are engaging with this issues, because it is absolutely core to having sustained progress in Northern Ireland," she says.
"We are going to face real fiscal pressures; we are going to have major challenges in terms of maintaining and sustaining our public services; we're going to have to make massive reform decisions around health, education, and justice – all of which are going to require a sustained period of work to deliver."
Alliance remains agnostic on the constitutional question but the party's leader advocates academic research and modelling that looks at the pros and cons of both a united Ireland and remaining in the UK.
"It's something that I think almost needs to be taken away from politicians and put into more academic sphere, to road test some of these ideas and theories," she says.
"If, for example, you look at the Scottish referendum, it came with a prospectus for what the future would look like and what the different kind of consequences of decisions would be – contrast that with Brexit, where people went in there blind, with everybody projecting their own idea of what it was going to look like – and it has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster."
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She argues for an "informed conversation"to ensure people understand the consequences of the status quo or constitutional change "on their savings; their pensions; what an all-island health service might look like".
Mrs Long says that like many other issues, the constitutional question is the subject of internal debate within Alliance.
"There are things that are constantly under debate within the party – there are no issues that are off limits but for people in our party it is not their main priority," she says.
On the latest EU-UK protocol talks, the Alliance leader stresses that she voted against Boris Johnson's 'oven ready deal', believing it to be "too clunky and bureaucratic" in comparison to the so-called backstop.
Mrs Long says she is "not without sympathy" for unionists who feel let down by the British government but argues that at the same time "they were the architects of their destruction".
"They believed the nonsense they were being fed, despite all of the evidence that it wasn't true, so I think they have to take a degree of responsibility," she says.
The East Belfast MLA insists there will be "no further renegotiation" if the DUP rejects what's on the table.
"Then you have to ask the question, is it really the deal that is the stumbling block to restoring an executive?" she ponders.
"Or is it perhaps that people are nervous about going back in and having to take some really tough political decisions in government because it will not be an easy term? Or is it more fundamental than not, that the idea of serving as a deputy first minister to Michelle O'Neill is just something that the main unionist party can't bring themselves to consider?"
