I still have passion and energy to lead Alliance Party – Naomi Long

Naomi Long has insisted she still has the “passion, energy and drive” to be Alliance Party leader.

Ms Long, who is also Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister, also hit back at suggestions support for her party had peaked, stating if she believed what was on social media, Alliance would be “annihilated” in the next Assembly election.

The 54-year-old became leader of the cross-community party in 2016, and led it to an all-time high of 17 Assembly seats in the 2022 election.

Asked how long she anticipated remaining as party leader, Ms Long insisted she “had not given it a lot of thought”.

She said: “From my point of view at the minute, I still feel that I have the passion, the energy, the drive to do the job.

“And nobody in the party has suggested at any stage that they don’t feel that I have those qualities.

“I have their full support.

“I think, of course, you get to a certain age, perhaps, where you start to think about what lies beyond politics.

“But I’m hopeful that I’m not at that age quite yet, I’m still enjoying what I do.”

Ms Long said many people wanted Alliance to be like “the Real Housewives of the Assembly”, but she said her team of MLAs actually “get on well”.

She added: “Every year the party gets the opportunity to elect a leader, and we’re one of the few parties that offers that opportunity.

“So far I’ve had, I’ve had that unanimous endorsement and support, and for as long as that continues, and until I decide that I’ve run out of steam, I hope that that will be the case.”

Ms Long also hit back at suggestions the party would struggle to replicate its 2022 success in next year’s Assembly elections.

She said: “If I was to read Twitter, the Alliance Party would be annihilated in the next election, but I’ve been reading that since 2014 and the truth is, Alliance has gone from strength to strength.

“You look back to the assembly elections in 2022 and Alliance was on about 13%, fast forward to the most recent Westminster election, we were on about 15%. So where is the decline?

“If people are going by opinion polls, and of course, everybody loves an opinion poll because it’s drama and it gives yards of coverage to go through, but you can’t base politics on opinion polls.

“You can only base it on the elections, on the day.”