Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

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Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
AbbreviationAPNI
Leader Naomi Long MLA
Deputy Leader Eóin Tennyson
President David Alderdice
Chairperson Michelle Guy MLA
Founders Oliver Napier
Bob Cooper
John Ferguson
Basil Glass
Founded21 April 1970;54 years ago (1970-04-21)
Preceded by Ulster Liberal Party
New Ulster Movement
Headquarters7 Farmley Road
Newtownabbey
BT36 7TY
Youth wing Alliance Youth
LGBT wingAlliance LGBT+
Ideology Liberalism [1] [2] [3]
Nonsectarianism [4] [5]
Pro-Europeanism [6] Secularism
Political position Centre [7] to centre-left [8]
European affiliation Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (associate)
International affiliation Liberal International
National affiliation Liberal Democrats [9]
Colours  Yellow
  Black
House of Commons
(NI seats)
1 / 18
House of Lords [a]
0 / 805
NI Assembly
17 / 90
Councillors in Northern Ireland [10]
67 / 462
Councils led in Northern Ireland
3 / 11
Website
allianceparty.org

The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), or simply Alliance, is a liberal [3] and centrist [7] political party in Northern Ireland. Following the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, it was the third-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, holding seventeen seats, and broke through by achieving third place in first preference votes in the 2019 European Parliament election and polling third-highest regionally at the 2019 UK general election. The party won one of the three Northern Ireland seats in the European Parliament, and one seat, North Down, in the House of Commons, [11] the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. [12]

Contents

Founded in 1970 from the New Ulster Movement, the Alliance Party originally represented moderate and non-sectarian unionism. However, over time, particularly in the 1990s, it moved towards neutrality on the Union, and came to represent wider liberal and non-sectarian concerns. It supports the Good Friday Agreement but maintains a desire for the reform of the political system towards a non-sectarian future and, in the Northern Ireland Assembly, it is designated as neither Unionist nor Irish nationalist, but "Other" or "United Community".

The Alliance Party won its first seat in the UK House of Commons in the 2010 general election, unseating the former East Belfast MP Peter Robinson, First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Naomi Long was the first MP from the Alliance Party since Stratton Mills, who joined the party from the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in 1973. However, the DUP regained the seat at the 2015 general election, following an electoral pact with the UUP. In the 2019 general election, Alliance regained its presence in the House of Commons when Stephen Farry won the North Down seat vacated by the independent unionist, Sylvia Hermon. Earlier that year, the party's leader, Naomi Long, won the party's first seat in the European Parliament in the last European election before Brexit. Under Long's leadership, the Alliance Party exceeded expectations in the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election and gained numerous seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. [13]

The Alliance Party is a member of the Liberal International [14] and Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, [15] and is aligned with the Liberal Democrats in Great Britain. [16]

History

Early growth and the 1974 Northern Ireland Executive

The party was formed in April 1970 as an alternative to the established parties. In the context of a rapidly worsening political crisis, it aimed not only to present an alternative to what they perceived as sectarian parties and expressly aimed to act as a bridge between the Protestant and Catholic sections of the community and heal the divisions in Northern Ireland society. The Party's founding principles were expressly in favour of Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom, although, in contrast to other unionist parties, that was expressed in socio-economic rather than ethnic terms. [17]

On 5 February 1973, prior to the 1973 Northern Ireland border poll, the party's chairman, Jim Hendron, stated that: "Support for the position of Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom is a fundamental principle of the Alliance Party, not only for economic reasons but also because we firmly believe that a peaceful solution to our present tragic problems is only possible within a United Kingdom context. Either a Sinn Fein all-Ireland republic or a Vanguard-style Ulster republic would lead to disaster for all our people." [18]

The party's prominence increased in 1972 when three members of the Northern Ireland House of Commons defected to Alliance. [19] The MPs were drawn from across Northern Ireland's political divide and included Bertie McConnell, an independent Unionist, the Ulster Unionist Phelim O'Neill and Tom Gormley who sat as an independent Nationalist. [20] In 1973, Lord Dunleath joined the party in the House of Lords. [21] Stratton Mills, who had been elected as an Ulster Unionist/Conservative MP at Westminster for North Belfast also joined that year, becoming the party's sole MP between 1973–74 and did not have another MP until 2010. [22] Its first electoral challenge was the District Council elections of May 1973 when they managed to win 13.6% of the votes cast. [23]

In the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which followed the Sunningdale Agreement, the party polled 9.2% and won eight seats. [24] After the elections, Alliance entered the power sharing Northern Ireland Executive. Oliver Napier became Legal Minister and Head of the Office of Law Reform and Bob Cooper took the junior role of Minister for Manpower Services. [25]

In its manifesto for the elections to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention in 1975, the Alliance Party stated "Alliance supports the constitutional position of Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom. We know that this belief is shared by the overwhelming majority of our people and that provocative debate about it has been the primary cause of all our most fundamental troubles. The link is in the best economic and social interests of all the people of Northern Ireland, and we will maintain that only the people of Northern Ireland have the right to decide any change by voting in a referendum." [26]

Alliance's vote increased significantly in the 1977 local elections, when it obtained 14.4% of the vote and had 74 Councillors elected. [27] In 1979, Party Leader Oliver Napier came closer than Alliance had previously come to electing a Westminster MP, polling just 928 votes short of Peter Robinson's winning total in East Belfast, albeit placing third in a three-way marginal. [28]

Stabilisation and decline

Alliance was seriously damaged by the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike, which deeply polarised Northern Ireland politics, and led to the emergence of Sinn Féin as a serious political force. The party supported the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, and despite claims that this would fatally damage its soft unionist support, Alliance rebounded to pick up 10.0% of the vote in Northern Ireland in the 1987 United Kingdom general election. [29]

John Alderdice polled 32.0% of the vote in East Belfast, while Alliance came within 15,000 votes of both the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin across Northern Ireland. He would go on to become leader after the election, replacing John Cushnahan. In 1996 Alderdice accepted a peerage, becoming the Alliance Party's only representation in Parliament. Lord Alderdice took the Liberal Democrat whip on wider UK and European issues but remained free from the whip's control on issues impacting Northern Ireland. [30]

In 1988, in Alliance's keynote post-Anglo Irish Agreement document, Governing with Consent, Alderdice called for a devolved power-sharing government. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Alliance's vote stabilised at between 7% and 10%. After the IRA and loyalist ceasefires in 1994, Alliance became the first non-nationalist party to enter into talks with Sinn Féin, as an active participant in the Northern Ireland peace process negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement, which it strongly supported. Alliance polled poorly in the 1996 elections for the Northern Ireland Forum, and the 1998 election for the Northern Ireland Assembly winning around 6.5% of the vote each time. This did enable the party to win six seats in the Assembly, although this was somewhat of a let-down given that it had been expected to do much better. [31]

The Good Friday Agreement era

1998–2004

John Alderdice resigned as party leader in 1998 to take up the post of the Assembly's Presiding Officer. He was replaced by Seán Neeson, who himself resigned as party leader in September 2001. Neeson was replaced by David Ford, a member of the Assembly for South Antrim.

It was predicted that Alliance would suffer electorally as a new centrist challenger established itself in Northern Irish politics, the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. Another problem for the APNI was that the rules of the Assembly require major votes (such as the election of the First Minister and deputy First Minister) to have the support of both a majority of unionist and nationalist MLAs, thus diminishing the importance of parties such as Alliance which are not aligned to either of these two blocs.

In the 2003 Assembly elections, Alliance held all their seats, while the Women's Coalition lost both of theirs. Alliance's vote fell to just 3.7%. In the European Parliament Elections in 2004, Alliance gave strong support to Independent candidate John Gilliland [32] who polled 6.6% of the vote, the highest for a non-communal candidate in a European election since 1979. In the early years of the peace process, the centre ground was relentlessly squeezed in Northern Ireland politics. The support for Gilliland's candidature, which was also supported by parties such as the Workers' Party and Northern Ireland Conservatives, reflected a desire to reunite the fragmented and weakened non-communal bloc in Northern Ireland politics.

2004–2016

David Ford led the Alliance between 2001 and 2016. David Ford.jpg
David Ford led the Alliance between 2001 and 2016.

In the 5 May 2005 United Kingdom general election, they contested 12 seats and polled 3.9% of the vote. In the simultaneous elections to Northern Ireland's local authorities, they polled 5.0% of first preference votes and had 30 Councillors elected, a gain of two seats relative to the previous elections.

The 2006–2007 period saw some signs of an Alliance upturn, topping the poll and gaining a seat in a by-election for Coleraine Borough Council. [33]

In the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly elections, Alliance put in a strong media campaign and polled 5.2%, [34] up from 3.6% in the previous election and gaining a seat in Belfast South following the successful candidature of Anna Lo, the first ethnic Chinese public representative in a national assembly anywhere in Western Europe. In an election cycle where many pundits had predicted that the Alliance Party would struggle to hold on to the six seats it won in the 2003 election, the party pulled off a credible performance which included Deputy Leader Naomi Long doubling her share of the vote in Belfast East.

In 2008, during the deadlock between Sinn Féin and the DUP over the devolution of policing, the two parties came to an agreement that the Minister of Justice would not come from either party. The Alliance Party was the obvious choice but party leader David Ford said "it's a very definite and a very emphatic no". Ford further stated, "this executive is incompetent, it's time they got on with doing the job that they were set up to do". [35] Following further negotiations, Ford assumed office on 12 April 2010.

At the 2009 European elections, Alliance candidate Ian Parsley achieved the party's best European election vote share in 30 years with 5.5% of the vote.

In the 2010 general election, the party won its first seat in Westminster, with Naomi Long taking the seat of sitting First Minister Peter Robinson. [36] The 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly Election resulted in eight Assembly members being returned with a gain in Belfast East. It overtook the UUP on Belfast City Council.

In a poll conducted in November 2012, Alliance (on 11.6%) overtook the UUP (11.4%) for the first time. [37]

During the 2016 elections to the Assembly, in spite of initially confident predications from David Ford that Alliance would see a surplus of up to 11 seats, [38] the party's share of the popular vote stagnated somewhat, from 7.7% in 2011 to 7.0%. Ultimately, its 8 MLAs from their original respective constituencies were returned to Stormont for the fifth Assembly term. Ford later resigned as Alliance Party leader on 6 October 2016, on his 15th anniversary as leader of the party.

2016–2019: Opposing Brexit

Long and Farry serve as current Alliance Leader and Deputy Leader

On 26 October 2016, Naomi Long officially became the new leader of the Alliance Party. [39] In the snap 2017 Assembly election, Alliance increased its vote share to 9.1% and retained all eight of their MLA seats in a reduced Assembly. [40] For the 2017 general election, the party advocated a confirmatory referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement and remaining in the European Single Market. [41] In April 2018, the party joined the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party as an associate member. [42]

Alliance increased its vote share by 5 percentage points in the 2019 local elections and broke out of its traditional Greater Belfast heartlands by taking seats on Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council and Derry City & Strabane District Council where the party had not previously been represented. [43] During the election campaign, the party had urged a break from "orange and green politics" and was vocal in its opposition to Brexit using the slogan "Demand Better". [44]

In the 2019 European election, Naomi Long became the Alliance Party's first ever MEP, receiving the second of three seats allocated to Northern Ireland and securing the best ever result for Alliance with 18.5% of first-preference votes. [45]

The party greatly increased its vote share at the 2019 general election, from 7.9% to 16.8% of Northern Ireland, over-taking the SDLP and UUP to come third overall. The party re-gained a seat in the House of Commons (North Down, previously held by the retiring independent Sylvia Hermon), and was second in another four constituencies. [46]

2020–present: COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent elections

Long became Stormont's justice minister in January 2020, holding the position throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. [47] In March 2022, Long told the Alliance Party conference in Belfast that the DUP and Sinn Féin were "addicted to crisis and conflict", and hoped that her party could bring an end to the "binary system" at Stormont. [48]

The Alliance Party fought the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election on a platform of reforming the Stormont institutions, health transformation, integrated education, a Green New Deal and tackling paramilitarism. Alliance would go on to win the third highest number of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, 4.5% more of the vote than they did in the 2017 election and also gaining nine seats. [49] In all, the 2022 election saw the party win 17 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, more than double the number of seats than what they previously had after the 2017 Northern Ireland Assembly election. [13]

The 2023 Northern Ireland local elections were, in Long's own words, "a mixed bag", [50] but the party still gained 14 seats overall, increasing its councillor total to 67.

Ideology and policies

Over the past 40 years (and particularly since the mid-1990s), Alliance's political philosophy has veered away from non-sectarian unionism towards a more liberal, neutral position on the question of either a united Ireland or continued union with Great Britain. [51] Alliance supports the Good Friday Agreement as a basis that can be used to manage the conflict whilst working to ultimately create a non-sectarian political system for Northern Ireland. It believes that the consociational power-sharing structure established by the agreement may not be capable of providing long-term stability, citing various reservations such as the entrenchment of pre-existing divisions as well as the inability to adapt to demographic changes. [52] [53] Its 2022 manifesto stated "Alliance supports the Good Friday Agreement, and endorses its underlying principles, its structures, and its interlocking relationships. However, we have always supported reform of the structures of government and, in light of recent developments, the case for reform is stronger than ever." [54]

The Alliance Party was founded by moderate Unionists in the New Ulster Movement in April 1970 in response to the emergence of the Troubles. [55] As Alliance viewed the situation, the major problem of Northern Ireland was the division between Protestants and Catholics. It contended that the turmoil had its origins in that division and not in the partition of Ireland. The party's founding members resolved to change the "traditional mould" of sectarian politics in Northern Ireland, by launching a party deliberately set out to win support from both sections of the population. The party's founding principles were an attempt to address the "fundamental fears" of Protestants being coerced into a united Ireland, and of Catholics being condemned to second-class citizenship within Northern Ireland.[ citation needed ]

The distinguishing feature of Alliance is its belief in the legitimacy of a distinctive Northern Irish community, [56] one that has more in common than what divides it, with most inhabitants speaking a common language, sharing some form of Christianity, and not separated by distinguishable racial or physical characteristics. Alliance does not view unionism and nationalism as distinct communities, but as "political positions".[ citation needed ] Furthermore, Alliance sees identity as an individual matter, one that is fluid and open to change over time. In a 2014 document, the Alliance stated:

We acknowledge that people identify with and belong to religious, ethnic, cultural and regional communities. These however are not permanent or stable but are open and fluid. People...can belong to many groups, have a complex identity, and have loyalties to different structures and levels of government. [57]

Because of this stance, Alliance is at times referred to as representing a "third tradition" or "third force" within Northern Irish politics that is outside of Nationalism and Unionism. [58] [59] [60]

As Alliance have moved to an ideologically liberal perspective, and Northern Ireland society has become more diverse, support for diversity has become a key Alliance platform, with Anna Lo MLA elected as the first ethnically East Asian parliamentarian in Northern Ireland and the party promoting a number of openly gay spokespeople. [61] In July 2005, Seamus Close, then an MLA and Lisburn councillor for the party and its former deputy leader, proposed that the Lisburn Council deny gay couples access to the council's designated wedding facility if they were seeking a civil partnership under the Civil Partnership Act 2004. The council adopted his recommendation, although it was later reversed on legal advice. His position ran against Alliance policy, which had been strongly supportive of the introduction of civil partnership laws, and he was publicly criticised by other senior party members. [62] The then party chair and future MLA, Lisburn councillor Trevor Lunn, who had also opposed the use of the wedding facility for civil partnerships, resigned as chair later that year, stating that "I always thought the Alliance Party was a broad enough church that we could support some difference of opinion. But it appears that in terms of equality issues, that we just can't." [63] The party's liberal ideology has also pushed the party towards a general favourable position on abortion, [61] immigration and LGBT rights. [64] The party also supports an integrated education system where Catholics and Protestants are educated together, improving healthcare in Northern Ireland, and legislating a Green New Deal. [51]

Electoral performance and the regionalisation of Alliance's vote

Northern Ireland Council Seats
Antrim and Newtownabbey
8 / 40
Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon
4 / 41
Belfast City
11 / 60
Causeway Coast and Glens
5 / 40
Derry and Strabane
0 / 40
Fermanagh and Omagh
2 / 40
Lisburn and Castlereagh
13 / 40
Mid and East Antrim
7 / 40
Mid Ulster
0 / 40
Newry, Mourne and Down
5 / 41
North Down and Ards
12 / 40

One trend over time with Alliance's vote is that in contrast to 1973, when Alliance support was dispersed across Northern Ireland, Alliance has increasingly polled best in the Greater Belfast hinterland. For example, the 1977 elections, while representing an overall increase for Alliance, masked a sharp decline in vote share in many Western councils. In the 12 councils covering the former counties of Londonderry, Tyrone, Armagh and Fermanagh their vote only rose in Omagh, it remained static in Magherafelt and fell in the other ten councils (these being Fermanagh, Dungannon, Cookstown, Strabane, Londonderry, Limavady, Coleraine, Newry & Mourne, Armagh and Craigavon.) Overall in these 12 councils the number of Alliance councillors fell from 18 in 1973 to ten in 1977. In contrast, in the rest of the region Alliance increased their number of councillors from 45 to 60.

The party won eight council seats across Belfast in 1985. Although that has now recovered to six (from three in 2001), the six are entirely from South and East Belfast. Both seats in the Falls Road area of West Belfast were lost after the death and resignation of their councillors there in 1987 while their seat in North Belfast was lost in 1993, regained four years later and lost again in 2001. In the neighbouring areas of Dunmurry Cross (Twinbrook/Dunmurry) and Macedon (Rathcoole) Alliance lost their councillors in 1989 and 1994 respectively; on the other hand, the party won three out of seven seats in Victoria in 2011, the first time since 1977 that the party had won three council seats in the same electoral area. [65]

By 2005, the party had councillors in only half of Northern Ireland's 18 constituencies. However, this rose to 13 in 2011 after gains in Coleraine, Craigavon, Down and elsewhere. Having had around 30 councillors for a decade, the party won 44 seats in 2011. In the 2010 elections, the Alliance gained the Westminster seat of Belfast East, and gained a 22.6% swing there; in 2011 it re-emphasised that result, winning two out of the six MLA seats available.

In 2014, the party gained one seat in the Belfast Council area, this coming in North Belfast when Nuala McAllister ousted Sinn Féin. Outside of the capital the party's vote held up, and with the exception of Patrick Brown winning in Rowallane, there were no outstanding results.

In the 2015 Westminster elections, the party directed their resources at retaining the East Belfast seat Naomi Long had gained from the DUP in 2010. The party lost the seat to the DUP by 2,500 votes, after a Unionist pact, whilst the Alliance vote increased by 6% across the constituency.

The 2019 Northern Ireland local elections saw a substantial increase in the Alliance vote and resulted in 53 councillors being elected, with the only council not having any Alliance representation being in Mid Ulster. The balance of power in the capital of Belfast, is held by the party after an increase to 10 seats and becoming the 3rd party, at Belfast City Hall.

Several Alliance members have held the position of Lord Mayor of Belfast, including Long and (from 2021 to 2022), Kate Nicholl. [66]

Vote share by district council (1973–2011)

1973197719811985198919931997200120052011
Antrim 16.116.910.97.67.08.58.25.56.911.3
Ards 14.820.812.312.418.823.421.116.714.118.2
Armagh 7.86.40.7
Ballymena 6.45.26.15.42.01.11.51.7
Ballymoney 7.78.38.12.62.0
Banbridge 5.76.24.61.62.21.85.12.04.54.9
Belfast 13.418.613.211.510.911.29.26.86.812.6
Carrickfergus 22.330.021.824.927.132.227.423.523.225.1
Castlereagh 22.132.521.118.821.521.918.715.216.225.2
Coleraine 13.210.66.36.27.911.89.26.44.78.8
Cookstown 6.35.20.6
Craigavon 16.011.34.14.35.86.24.51.62.43.4
Derry 14.511.96.42.70.61.00.90.9
Down 12.311.88.45.22.23.83.72.14.9
Dungannon and South Tyrone 5.92.91.10.9
Fermanagh 7.71.91.61.81.00.90.4
Larne 25.525.817.416.411.59.012.214.512.415.5
Limavady 11.28.52.01.92.12.0
Lisburn 18.120.412.211.010.712.313.011.09.210.4
Magherafelt 4.64.72.51.2
Moyle 5.02.97.0
Newry and Mourne 13.58.33.61.02.0
Newtownabbey 18.928.415.610.314.016.110.38.08.016.4
North Down 29.538.525.226.320.722.722.117.616.018.3
Omagh 12.216.09.04.73.75.03.31.5
Strabane 9.63.01.71.12.20.9
Northern Ireland totals13.714.48.97.06.97.66.65.15.07.4

Vote share by district council (2014–present)

201420192023
Antrim and Newtownabbey 12.7%18.7%17.1%
Ards and North Down 13.4%22.2%26.6%
Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon 3.3%7.8%10.6%
Belfast City 11.4%15.7%15.9%
Causeway Coast and Glens 3.9%8.0%9.7%
Derry and Strabane 1.6%4.7%4.5%
Fermanagh and Omagh 1.7%3.9%6.0%
Lisburn and Castlereagh 12.0%23.6%28.5%
Mid and East Antrim 9.4%15.8%18.9%
Mid Ulster 0.6%1.2%2.8%
Newry, Mourne and Down 2.4%7.5%9.4%
Northern Ireland totals6.6%11.5%13.3%

Devolved Legislature elections

ElectionBodySeats won±PositionFirst Preference VotesVote %Executive
1973 1973 Assembly
8 / 78
Increase2.svg8Increase2.svg4th66,5419.2%UUP-SDLP-Alliance
1975 Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention (NICC)
8 / 78
Steady2.svgDecrease2.svg5th64,6579.8%
1982 1982 Assembly
10 / 78
Increase2.svg2Increase2.svg4th58,8519.3%
1996 Northern Ireland Forum
7 / 110
Increase2.svg7Decrease2.svg5th49,1766.5%
1998 1st Assembly
6 / 108
Increase2.svg6Steady2.svg5th52,6365.6%UUP-SDLP-DUP-Sinn Féin
2003 2nd Assembly
6 / 108
Steady2.svgSteady2.svg5th25,3723.7%Direct Rule
2007 3rd Assembly
7 / 108
Increase2.svg1Steady2.svg5th36,1395.2%DUP-Sinn Féin-UUP-SDLP-Alliance
2011 4th Assembly
8 / 108
Increase2.svg1Steady2.svg5th50,8757.7%DUP-Sinn Féin-UUP-SDLP-Alliance
2016 5th Assembly
8 / 108
Steady2.svgSteady2.svg5th48,4477.0%DUP-Sinn Féin-Independent
2017 6th Assembly
8 / 90
Steady2.svgSteady2.svg5th72,7179.1%DUP-Sinn Féin-UUP-SDLP-Alliance
2022 7th Assembly
17 / 90
Increase2.svg9Increase2.svg3rd116,68113.5%Sinn Féin-DUP-UUP-Alliance

Leaders

LeaderFromTo
1 Oliver Napier and Bob Cooper 19701972
2 Phelim O'Neill 19721972
3Oliver Napier19721984
4 John Cushnahan 19841987
5 John Alderdice 19871998
6 Seán Neeson 19982001
7 David Ford 20012016
8 Naomi Long 2016Incumbent

Deputy leaders

Deputy LeaderFromTo
1 Bob Cooper 19731976
2 Basil Glass 19761980
3 David Cook 19801984
4 Addie Morrow 19841987
5 Gordon Mawhinney 19871991
6 Seamus Close 19912001
7 Eileen Bell 20012006
8 Naomi Long 20062016
9 Stephen Farry 20162024
10 Eóin Tennyson 2024Incumbent

Elected representatives and party spokesman

MPs

PortraitNameConstituencyTermNotes
Stratton Mills Belfast North 1959–1974 [b] Defected from the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)
Naomi Long MLA.jpg Naomi Long Belfast East 2010–2015Leader of the Alliance Party (2016–present)
Official portrait of Stephen Farry MP crop 2.jpg Stephen Farry North Down 2019–2024Deputy Leader of the Alliance Party (2016–present)
Official portrait of Sorcha Eastwood MP crop 2.jpg Sorcha Eastwood Lagan Valley 2024–present

MLAs

MLA NameConstituencyGain
Naomi Long MLA Belfast East
Peter McReynolds MLA Belfast East
Nuala McAllister MLA Belfast North Gain
Paula Bradshaw MLA Belfast South
Kate Nicholl MLA Belfast South Gain
Stewart Dickson MLA East Antrim
Danny Donnelly MLA East Antrim Gain
Michelle Guy MLA Lagan Valley Co-opted
David Honeyford MLA Lagan Valley Gain
Sian Mulholland MLA North Antrim Gain
Connie Egan MLA North Down Gain
Andrew Muir MLA North Down
John Blair MLA South Antrim
Andrew McMurray MLA South Down Co-opted
Kellie Armstrong MLA Strangford
Nick Mathison MLA Strangford Gain
Eóin Tennyson MLA Upper Bann Gain

Alliance Youth

Alliance Youth
ChairpersonCllr Jamie Harpur
Vice-ChairpersonCohen Taylor
Ideology Liberalism [1] [67]
Pro-Europeanism
Mother partyAlliance Party
Website allianceyouthni.org

Alliance Youth is the youth and student movement of the Alliance Party. Alliance members who are under 25 years old automatically become members of Alliance Youth if they choose to share their details at registration. Alliance Youth is also responsible for overseeing Alliance Societies at Northern Ireland universities. Young Liberals Northern Ireland does not organise in any of Northern Ireland's Universities, encouraging members to become active within Alliance Youth societies.

Activity

Alliance Youth actively campaign on issues affecting young people, and aim to shape policy of the main party in these areas. Previous campaigns have focused on racism, child poverty, and human trafficking, as well as specific domestic issues facing young people, such as mental health care, tuition fees, sustainable transport, LGBT rights and homelessness. [68]

Alliance Youth is also particularly active in the recruitment and support of young candidates and elected representatives.

Executive

The current executive is as follows: [69] [ non-primary source needed ]

PositionHolder
ChairCllr Jamie Harpur
Vice ChairCohen Taylor
SecretaryEoin Millar
TreasurerThomas Blain
Campaigns & Development OfficerDennis Copp
Equality, Diversity & Welfare OfficerOlivia McCormack
Under 18 Membership OfficerMarkus Smith
International OfficerTommy Monahan
Social Media OfficerSophia Armstrong
Policy OfficerSeán Marshall
QUB Alliance RepVacant
UU Alliance RepThomas Blain

See also

Notes

  1. Former party leader John Alderdice sits in the House of Lords with the Liberal Democrats.
  2. Alliance Party MP from 1973 to 1974.

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Belfast North is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is John Finucane.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belfast South (UK Parliament constituency)</span> Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1885–1918 and 1922–2024

Belfast South was a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naomi Long</span> Northern Irish politician Leader of Alliance Party NI currently MLA (born 1971)

Naomi Rachel Long MLA is a Northern Irish politician who has served as Minister of Justice in the Northern Ireland Executive since February 2024, having previously served from January 2020 to October 2022. She has served as leader of the Alliance Party since 2016 and a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Belfast East since 2020.

Frank McCoubrey is a Northern Irish unionist politician and Ulster Loyalist, as well as a community activist and researcher. McCoubrey is a Belfast City Councillor for the Court DEA since 1997, sitting as a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) member since 2012. He is a leading member of the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG). McCoubrey is a native of Highfield, Belfast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election</span>

The 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election was held on Wednesday, 7 March 2007. It was the third election to take place since the devolved assembly was established in 1998. The election saw endorsement of the St Andrews Agreement and the two largest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin, along with the Alliance Party, increase their support, with falls in support for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Traditional Unionist Voice</span> Political party in Northern Ireland

The Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. In common with all other Northern Irish unionist parties, the TUV's political programme has as its sine qua non the preservation of Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom. A founding precept of the party is that "nothing which is morally wrong can be politically right".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election</span>

The 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election took place on Thursday, 5 May, following the dissolution of the Northern Ireland Assembly at midnight on 24 March 2011. It was the fourth election to take place since the devolved assembly was established in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2013 Mid Ulster by-election</span>

A by-election for the UK House of Commons constituency of Mid Ulster in Northern Ireland was held on 7 March 2013. The election was triggered by the resignation of Martin McGuinness, who had been elected to the seat in 1997 as the Sinn Féin candidate. The election was won by Francie Molloy, also of Sinn Féin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2015 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland</span>

The 2015 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland was held on 7 May 2015 and all 18 seats were contested. 1,236,765 people were eligible to vote, up 67,581 from the 2010 general election. 58.45% of eligible voters turned out, an increase of half a percentage point from the last general election. This election saw the return of Ulster Unionists to the House of Commons, after they targeted 4 seats but secured 2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2017 Northern Ireland Assembly election</span>

The 2017 Northern Ireland Assembly election was held on Thursday, 2 March 2017. The election was held to elect members (MLAs) following the resignation of deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in protest over the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal. McGuinness' position was not filled, and thus by law his resignation triggered an election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election</span>

The 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election was held on 5 May 2022. It elected 90 members to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It was the seventh assembly election since the establishment of the assembly in 1998. The election was held three months after the Northern Ireland Executive collapsed due to the resignation of the First Minister, Paul Givan of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), in protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2019 Northern Ireland local elections</span> Local elections

Local elections were held in Northern Ireland on Thursday 2 May 2019. The last elections were held in 2014. 819 candidates contested 462 seats across Northern Ireland's 11 local government districts. 1,305,384 people aged 18 and over were eligible to vote, and 52.7% of the electorate turned out.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2019 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland</span> Result of Northern Ireland element of the UK General Election

The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on 12 December 2019 to elect all 650 members of the House of Commons, including 18 seats in Northern Ireland. 1,293,971 people were eligible to vote, up 51,273 from the 2017 general election. 62.09% of eligible voters turned out, down 3.5 percentage points from the last general election. For the first time in history, nationalist parties won more seats than unionist parties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2023 Northern Ireland local elections</span> Local elections

Local elections were held in Northern Ireland on 18 May 2023. The elections were delayed by two weeks to avoid overlapping with the coronation of King Charles III. Following the elections, Sinn Féin became the largest party in local government for the first time. It also marked the first time that nationalist parties had garnered a greater share of the vote than unionist parties, however, despite this, there were more unionist councillors elected than nationalists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2024 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland</span>

The 2024 general election in Northern Ireland was held on 4 July 2024, with all 18 Northern Irish seats in the House of Commons contested. The general election occurred after the recently completed constituency boundaries review.

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