Alliance will not ‘prop up disaster’ but won’t quit Executive either, says Long

Alliance leader Naomi Long said the better place for her party is to be in what she described as a “zombie” Executive, despite questions marks hanging over the future of Stormont.

The justice minister said there is a “real challenge” about how long the party can stay in the Executive.

She also accused the DUP of trying to “goad” her party to walk away from the Executive following the political fallout over the Drumcree parading dispute.

Northern Ireland’s fragile power-sharing Executive has continued to deteriorate in the wake of the Drumcree parading dispute.

Speaking to BBC Northern Ireland Sunday Politics show, Ms Long said: “I believe it was the right decision to go into the Executive and try and deliver for people.

“But if I believe that the Executive is actually harming the people of Northern Ireland, of course, that’s a balance that we would actually have to make.

“But that’s a balance that we make every day and for now, we believe the better place for us to be is in the Executive, trying to make things work and trying to navigate a way through what is clearly a crisis that is emerging in the Executive at the moment.”

She added: “But I do think that there is a real challenge about how long you can stay in an Executive if it is, literally, a zombie Executive that can’t deliver on things like the budget, that can’t deliver on legislation.

“I think that that’s something we’ll need to look at very carefully.

“We’re not going to prop up disaster. That’s for sure.”

Ms Long claimed that Sinn Fein and the DUP do not want to be in the Executive but do not want to be responsible for pulling down the Government.

While an election to the Northern Ireland Assembly is to take place in May next year, many have questioned whether the Executive will still be functioning by then.

Ms Long said: “I don’t think either Sinn Fein or the DUP actually want to be in the Executive at this point, but I don’t think either of them want the blame for pulling it down, and that might be the only saving grace in this, that neither of them want their fingers on the lever.

“I think, at one point, the DUP were trying to goad the Alliance Party to walk away from the Executive and cause a crisis. That wasn’t going to happen because we’re wise to those kinds of tactics.

“But I do think at this stage neither of them are fully invested, but neither of them want the blame.”

She said: “We certainly won’t do it (leave) in a fit of pique because people are trying to provoke us into doing that.

“We have to be serious about where the Executive is headed. We have to get a budget in place. That’s essential, and we’re going to hold people’s feet to the fire to do that.

“We went into the Executive to deliver. I believe it is still possible for us to do that, and I would rather stay in post and get that work done.”