Alliance may quit Executive without reforms, warns deputy leader

A senior Alliance politician has warned that his party may not return to the Northern Ireland Executive after the next election without reforms to the Stormont structures or a "significant change" in attitude from Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

The next assembly election is due to take place on 6 May 2027.

Parties are currently in the process of selecting candidates who will run for the 90 seats up for grabs.

Speaking to the Westminster Northern Ireland Affairs committee on Wednesday, Alliance deputy leader Eóin Tennyson referred to the fact that the party had already signalled their involvement in the power-sharing administration should not be taken for granted.

The Upper Bann MLA added: "We haven't set our manifesto for the next election, and we will have a detailed discussion as a party in terms of whether there will be prerequisites for us to go back in.

"But I think it is fairly clear, given how dysfunctional the executive has been over the past two years, that we would not be returning to the executive without either a significant change in attitude from the two largest parties, or some change to the structures, or at least a process to get there."

Tennyson added that the use of a petition of concern this week to block the raising of the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 was "a perversion of democracy".

He said it was "an affront to the rights, not of my party, but to the people that I represent", who he claimed were "being treated like second-class citizens by their own political institutions".

Tennyson added: "We made the case for reform when the assembly was down previously and we were told by the two governments then that now wasn't the right time, that you couldn't move the goal posts whilst the institutions were in hiatus, and they needed to be up and running in order to have that conversation."

He said that since then the party had put its "shoulder to the wheel" to try to make the institutions work "on the proviso that the two governments would... look at serious reform of the institutions".

He acknowledged that the Irish government has "moved and has honoured their word", while the secretary of state has "indicated that he wishes to have an engagement with local parties".

This would be welcome, Tennyson said, but added that if the party felt progress had "stalled", or that they were being "taken for granted", they would "take a different course".

"I think the public and other parties should be under no illusions about that."

Leader of the opposition, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP)'s Matthew O'Toole, claimed that if more TUV MLAs got elected it was "highly probable" the DUP would not be able to go back into government.

He said: "Imagine you had a few more TUV in Stormont. There's one TUV MLA and one TUV MP at the minute... and the DUP are petrified of them. They lead the unionist discourse.

"I think if there was a bigger group of them, even if it's only a handful, I think the DUP - if the system is not reformed - I think it's highly possible they would not be able to form a government."

But the DUP leader Gavin Robinson told the committee suggestions his party would be unwilling to serve in a future Executive had "no basis whatsoever".