It’s 25 years since Naomi Long was first elected as a councillor in Belfast, and ten years since she became Alliance leader.

Notwithstanding the 2015 loss of the East Belfast Westminster seat she took from Peter Robinson five years previous, her political trajectory has generally been upward and even included a truncated stint as an MEP.

Under Mrs Long’s leadership Alliance has enjoyed unprecedented electoral success, leapfrogging the Ulster Unionists and SDLP to become the Assembly’s third-biggest party. In the 2024 general election, Alliance lost and gained a seat while securing a respectable 15% of the vote. For a party that at one stage was on the verge of an existential crisis, it represents a notable turnaround in fortunes.

Yet polling suggests the surge that saw Alliance effectively double its Stormont contingent has peaked and the best the party can expect from next year’s Assembly election is to hold what it currently has.

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There are a number reasons for this apparent stagnation, and it goes deeper than merely an over-familiarity or fatigue with the leader, as some have suggested.

Brexit, the issue that seemingly fuelled much of the surge, has been resolved largely by pragmatism, with Remainers’ worst fears failing to materialise.

There’s also a significant section of the electorate that continues to vote primarily on the constitutional question, which immediately handicaps agnostic Alliance.

It’s also possible that the party is ironically a victim of what its supporters would regard as ‘normal politics’.

It’s argued that in normal politics voters are motivated not by constitutional allegiance but by a party’s performance in government and its ability to deliver on manifesto pledges.

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If the voter feels the contract that led them to cast their vote in a particular way has not been fulfilled, then they’ll be inclined to switch parties, or not bother voting.

Naomi Long and Andrew Muir will claim to be delivering, or at least trying to, but the public often doesn’t differentiate between individual ministers and the Executive as whole – which two years since its restoration is struggling to move forward on a host of issues.

Alliance ministers are clearly dissatisfied by the administration’s record of delivery, but there are limits to how critical they can be without undermining their own participation in the Executive. They can be neither fifth columnists seeking to destabilise the institutions or cheerleaders for the actions and inaction of their senior partners in government.

Mrs Long is clearly aware that a section of supporters are disappointed, which explains the part of her conference speech where she warned that Alliance’s participation in the Executive isn’t guaranteed – also a clear warning to the DUP in particular that its vetoing and intransigence may ultimately force an exit.

Walking out before the election is unlikely, but equally unlikely is going back into the Executive post-May 2027 to again be subordinate to Sinn Féin and the DUP, with the latter proving especially obstructive when it comes to agreeing policy proposed by Alliance ministers.

The reform the party campaigned on at the last election is also proving illusive.

If the SDLP and to a lesser extent the Greens gain at next year’s polls due to Alliance disillusionment, then opposition looks a cert for the latter.

That’ll be bad news for the SDLP, while at the same time putting the Sinn Féin/DUP-led institutions on a make-or-break footing.

© The Irish News