Stephen Farry has resigned from the Alliance Party ahead of taking-up a fresh role at Ulster University’s newly-established Strategic Policy Unit.
The former North Down MP, who lost his seat in July’s Westminster election, will head-up the think tank alongside Jodie Carson, his former adviser, who latterly worked as an aide to Alliance agriculture and environment minister Andrew Muir.
Mr Farry, who previously served as Stormont’s minister for employment and learning, resigned as Alliance deputy leader last month, some ten weeks after his general election defeat to independent unionist Alex Easton.
Speaking to The Irish News, the 53-year-old said he had severed ties with the party he served for more than three decades “on very good terms”.
“This is about my personal career development and a new opportunity for me, and it’s with a certain degree of sadness that I have to step back from the party as part of that process,” he said.
Asked if he would’ve preferred a new role within Alliance, Mr Farry said he had toyed with the idea of replacing Sorcha Eastwood in Lagan Valley following her successful Westminster bid. Yet he said such a move “wasn’t going to be viable in terms of the optics” and he welcomed the co-option of Michelle Guy into the vacant assembly seat.
“I’ve been in the party for for many years, and filled a whole range of functions both backroom and at the front but I was conscious that I ran for election and I wanted to get re-elected, but that didn’t happen,” he said.
“Assessing the options afterwards, I was very conscious that we had lot of new people coming through, and it was time to profile them, and for me to think how I could play a different role in terms of terms of our community.”
When asked about his July 4 defeat in North Down by a 7,305 margin, the former Alliance leader pointed to the circumstances in 2019 that saw him elected.
He described the surge in support for Alliance five years ago as a “little bit artificial” and driven by “what had happened in the aftermath of Brexit and the potential of what could happen at the start of that parliament”.
He also cited the dormant devolved institutions at the time and pressures around public sector pay, including a nurses’ strike.
“So there was real resonance at that time and those factors weren’t at play in ‘24 to anywhere near to the same extent – the political narrative had moved on, and in essence, we as a party fell back to what was essentially the standard vote that we’d built up over recent years,” he said
“To contrast that, Alex Eaton essentially captured the mantle of being the sort typical north down independent, even though he was backed by a couple of different parties, he managed to to portray himself as an independent, and people mobilised towards him.”
The former MP voiced his full support for Alliance leader Naomi Long, dismissing suggestions that she too should make way for new blood, as two of her counterparts have in as many months.
“We’ve probably had far too much drama in terms of leadership changes this year and Naomi’s doing a great job and will remain doing so,” he said.
Asked whether he’d ever consider a seat in the House of Lords, he said: “Well, you never say never to these things but no one’s asked me, so that’s what you would term a hypothetical question.”
