Long first took political office in 2001 when she was elected to
Belfast City Council for the
Victoria electoral area. In 2003 Long was elected to the
Northern Ireland Assembly for
Belfast East,
Member of Parliament On 6 May 2010, Long defeated
Peter Robinson,
First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the DUP, to become
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Belfast East in the
House of Commons. She became the first MP elected to Westminster for the Alliance Party (previously,
Stratton Mills, a former Ulster Unionist Party MP, had changed parties to Alliance). Long also became the first Liberal-affiliated MP elected to Westminster in Northern Ireland since
James Brown Dougherty in
Londonderry City in 1914. Despite the close relationship between the Alliance Party and the
Liberal Democrats, Long did not sit with the coalition government nor take the
coalition whip and was not a member of the Liberal Democrats. On 10 December 2012, Long received a number of death threats and a petrol bomb was thrown inside an unmarked police car guarding her constituency office. This violence erupted as a reaction by
Ulster loyalists to the decision by Alliance Party members of
Belfast City Council to vote in favour of
restricting the flying of the Union flag at Belfast City Hall to designated days throughout the year, which at the time constituted 18 specific days. In 2015, Long lost her seat in the Commons to
Gavin Robinson of the DUP, as a result of a five-party unionist pact in the constituency which saw the UUP,
UKIP,
TUV and
PUP all stand aside in favour of Robinson. She contested the seat for Alliance at the next
two elections, and was the unsuccessful Alliance PPC for Belfast East for the
2024 United Kingdom general election.
Return to the Northern Ireland Assembly In January 2016, Long announced that she would return as an Assembly candidate in the
2016 elections having been nominated in place of incumbent
Judith Cochrane. She was subsequently elected on the first count with 14.7% of first-preference votes. Following her return to the Assembly, Long assumed positions on the
Committee for Communities, the
All Party Group on
Fairtrade, the All Party Group for
Housing, and chaired the All Party Group on
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. In August 2016, Long called for
Sinn Féin's
Máirtín Ó Muilleoir to stand aside as
Minister of Finance during an investigation of the Stormont Finance Committee's handling of its
Nama inquiry, while Ó Muilleoir was a committee member. This followed allegations that his party had "coached" loyalist blogger
Jamie Bryson prior to his appearance before the committee. In November 2016, Long criticised Sinn Féin and the DUP for delaying the publication of a working group report on
abortion, which recommended legislative changes in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, calling on the Executive "to act without further delay to help women who decide to seek a termination in these very difficult circumstances".
Leader of the Alliance Party On 26 October 2016, Long was elected Alliance leader unopposed following the resignation of
David Ford. In the first manifesto released under her leadership, Long affirmed her commitment to building a "united, open,
liberal and
progressive" society. Her party's legislative priorities were revealed to include the harmonisation and strengthening of
equality and
anti-discrimination measures, the introduction of civil
marriage equality, development of
integrated education and a Northern Ireland framework to tackle
climate change. In the
2017 Assembly election, Long topped the poll in
Belfast East and was returned to the Assembly with 18.9% of first-preference votes. The election was widely viewed as a success for Alliance, with the party increasing its vote share by 2 percentage points and retaining all of its seats in a smaller Assembly. The party subsequently held the
balance of power at Stormont. Alliance targeted two seats in
South and
Belfast East in the
2017 general election. During the campaign, Long reaffirmed her support for a
People's Vote,
marriage equality,
Votes at 16 and greater transparency surrounding
political donations. She also pledged to oppose any rollback of the
Human Rights Act. Following the collapse of talks to restore devolution in February 2018, Long reiterated her view that the pay of MLAs should be cut in the absence of a functioning Executive. In March 2018, Alliance launched its 'Next Steps Forward' paper, outlining a number of proposals aimed at breaking the deadlock and Stormont. At the 2019 Alliance Party Conference, she accused
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley of an "appalling dereliction of duty" over the ongoing stalemate, saying that she had made "no concerted effort to end this interminable drift despite it allegedly being her top priority". In the
2019 local elections, Alliance saw a 65% rise in its representation on councils. Long hailed the "incredible result" as a watershed moment for politics in Northern Ireland. Long was elected to the
European Parliament as a representative for
Northern Ireland in
May 2019 with 18.5% of first-preference votes, the best ever result for Alliance. She was subsequently replaced in the Assembly by
Máire Hendron, a founding member of the party and former deputy lord mayor of Belfast. She then replaced Hendron in the Assembly with effect from 9 January 2020. In 2019, Long became the first Northern Ireland politician to have served at every level of government. In March 2022, Long told the Alliance Party Conference that "some politicians are addicted to crisis and conflict and simply not up to the job of actually governing". Long led Alliance into the
2022 Assembly election on a platform of
integrated education, health reform, a
Green New Deal, tackling
paramilitarism and reform of the Stormont institutions.
Minister of Justice On 11 January 2020, following the restoration of the
Northern Ireland Assembly after three years of stalemate, Long was elected
Minister of Justice in the
Northern Ireland Executive. On 28 January, Long announced that she would progress new domestic abuse legislation through the Assembly which would make
coercive control a criminal offence in Northern Ireland. In June 2020, Long commissioned a review into the support available for prison officers following concerns about absence rates. That same month, she announced her intention to introduce
unexplained wealth orders in Northern Ireland to target paramilitary and criminal finances. In November 2020, Long said she was seriously reconsidering her position within the Executive following the
DUP's deployment of a
cross-community vote to prevent an extension of
COVID-19 regulations. She told
BBC News, "I have asked people to desist from this abuse of power because it will make my position in the executive unsustainable." == Personal life ==