Northern Ireland politics needs to become more representative, minister says

Politics in Northern Ireland needs to attract more people from ethnic minorities to be reflective of the population, Andrew Muir has said.

However, Mr Muir said a lack of comment about him being Stormont’s first openly gay minister shows the level of progress in the region.

The Alliance Party politician said he considered it a privilege to serve as Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.

However, the department has faced multiple issues in his time in office, including the environmental emergency at Lough Neagh.

Mr Muir said: “When I started, the first thing that happened was I was handed a phone, and was told, if that rings, there’s probably something serious happening.

“And it rings quite often now.

“I enjoy a challenge. I wouldn’t have done taking this job on if I thought it was easy, because I like doing things that are hard, and I like working through the issues.”

The minister said he deals with the negativity in politics by going for a run to get his “head showered”.

He has completed 11 marathons and has a parkrun 5k personal best of 19 minutes and six seconds.

Mr Muir said: “I think you need to have something.

“Running is also where I connect with people outside the world of politics, and I realise that there’s a very different perspective sometimes in the issues that we’re dealing with.”

He added: “I’m very conscious that I’m the first openly gay member of the Executive since its foundation.

“The fact that that’s went largely without comment has shown the level of progress.

“But we need to go further.

“I’m sad that the last person from an ethnic minority background who was serving in the Assembly was my friend and colleague, Anna Lo.

“We need to have an Assembly that’s more reflective of society and also somewhere that’s attractive, somewhere that people want to serve, because some of the debates can be rather toxic.

“We just need to be conscious that we can play the ball rather than the player, and I think that’s what hopefully the ambition should be in the time ahead.”

Mr Muir said he had a good relationship with the farming community despite the Ulster Farmers’ Union passing a vote of no confidence in his department last year.

He said: “I meet farmers on a regular basis. The reality is that people are respectful, they’re engaging.

“The internet trolls do not reflect and do not fairly characterise the farming community in Northern Ireland as progressive.

“It looks towards the future. We have challenges, we work through those.”