the headlines: french voters are going to the polls to decide who will control their national assembly. mr macron beat the far right in april, but this time the challenge is harder. the transport secretary grant shapps accuses the country's biggest rail union of "punishing" millions of innocent people after it confirmed it will go ahead with series of crippling strikes. but union leaders blame politicions for failing to stop the strike. western leaders are warning the war in ukraine could last for years and sustained support will be required to defeat the russian invasion. borisjohnson, who visited kyiv on friday, has set out a four—point plan to supply weapons and economic assistance. flooding, landslides and lightning strikes triggered by seasonal monsoon weather have left at least 59 people dead in bangladesh and india. rescue teams have been active throughout the region to bring people trapped by floodwaters to safety.

now on bbc news, it's time for political thinking with nick robinson. welcome to political thinking, a conversation with rather than interrogation of someone his political thinking helps to shape ours. once again, london and brussels are at loggerheads. once again, the row between the uk and the eu is about the status of northern ireland. once again, politics in belfast is deadlocked, with unionists refusing to share power with sinn fein. my guess is someone whose life and career is based on a refusal

to take sides in the political battle. it is a decision that has paid dividends for naomi long, who leads the alliance party, which won a record number of seats in the recent elections. brought up in one of the most fiercely loyalist parts of east belfast, she insisted that politics should not be defined by whether you want northern ireland to stay in the uk or instead to be united with the rest of ireland. but does she and her party really represent anything more than simply none of the above? naomi long, from belfast, welcome to political thinking. hi there. do you ever find yourself ever so slightly really of the stop—go nature of politics in northern ireland, which too many people looking in from outside, seems defined by one sightseeing they will not talk to the other. absolutely. i suppose it has two inpacts.

yes, i get weary. when i was first elected back in 2003, the assembly was suspended, and actually in the time that i have been elected to the assembly, which has had breaks in between when i was elected to other places, but the assembly has actually been suspended as much as it has sat, so to say that i am weary of the stop—go nature of politics is probably putting it quite mildly. of politics is probably putting but also, i am motivated by it, because of the whole purpose of me getting involved in politics was that i wanted northern ireland to be better. i wanted to heal divisions, bring people together, work as a society and work from there in terms of people's aspirations, and i suppose that is the evidence that we have work to do.

but it is also motivating. for 100 years, politics and that northern ireland has been defined by what side you're on. do you ever have a look in the mirror and think, what are you doing thinking you can convince people that politics is about what it is in the rest of the country? sometimes, it feels like an power struggle, but many when i'm trying to explain it to a journalist, who maybe don't really understand the dynamics and the changes that have happened in society over the last 2a years of the good friday agreement, or when i am arguing with tolls on twitter, which is i still do despite all the advice of the country, they want to put me into a box and put in, politics, and at that time i do feel

——trolls when out and about meeting people on the doors, which as minister ofjustice, it makes sense. it doesn't make it feel strange or weird at all. it is true that people are telling opinion pollsters that they don't want to be box, they don't want to describe himself as either unionist or nationalist. there are of people will have constitutional aspirations, but it doesn't necessarily define other politics. the problem is when you sign up to be a unionist on a national estate are often a lot of other baggage that comes with that in terms of your wider political prospectus,

and i think even people have some aspirations, they don't necessarily want to buy into the whole package, and it does not necessarily either the driving force. there it is and what motivates me to get up out of bed and go to work and be involved in politics. i wouldn't been doing that if it was just about a united ireland or remaining in the uk, because that is not to me fundamental. i do it because i love northern ireland, i believe it can be a better place, i believe our society can work together and we can be more optimistic for the future. that is what you say motivates you, and i want to get a sense as we talk offer that comes from. you now represent east belfast, you have done it in northern ireland assembly, you have done it in the house of commons, you have done it in the european parliament as well. you have talked of east belfast of being the place that formed me and my values. to those of us who are occasional visitors to the city, we will know that the area that you grew up in is one of the most tribal areas in the whole of northern ireland. you still see murals paying tributes to loyalist terrorists on certain houses as you walk down the street.

what sort of upbringing was it for you? that is one side of east belfast, the other side is that i grew up in a very close—knit community, a place where people genuinely had a real sense of community, generation after generation together, and there was a sense of pulling together. —— where families grew up. the tribal stuff actually often impacted really negatively in those communities, when you had gatekeepers from paramilitary organisations exercising coercive control over communities rather than giving people that freedom, and that has shaped my politics, because i hate bullying. i just can't stand it. and it felt like bullying, and it felt oppressive. so, for me, my politics is about trying to give people and those communities the freedom that people in more affluent communities actually enjoy, to live in mixed areas, to be able to socialise together and be in mixed communities, to be able to send their kids to integrated schools, and all of those things that are starting to happen after the agreement,

that is aspirations that i have. you talk of coercive control, you talk of bullying. is that your memories of being a little girl, feeling that you had to conform, that you are expected to be something, to behave in a particular way, to say certain things? it wasn't so much as a child, because i think that all parents my parents protected me from much of what was going on, but we were aware that there were paramilitaries in the community. were there were certain families that if you crossed it would have consequences? yes, we were, and people still live with that today. there are younger people who listen and watch this, for whom it is frankly a mystery, it is lost in the mists of time. you are talking of living and an area where you risked life and limb if you were to do the opposite of what people in the community thought for the right thing. in some cases, if there was a dispute with the family who were paramilitary links, peoples wonders would be sparse, who were paramilitary links, their car set on fire, whatever it might be as a warning.

ultimately, people had to leave the community because they were threatened. those things happened and still do, and i wasn't immune to that. but there was a wider sense that because there was a battle going on in northern ireland at time, and it did feel a kind of embattled position that people needed to stick together, because there was a sense that if you didn't, that division would be exploited and so on. i suppose that you just grew up with that as kind of unawareness. would be exploited and so on. i suppose that you just grew up with that as kind of unawareness. it wasn't. .. we had, as a family, i suppose an experience where, it sounds like a trivial thing, but people were collecting to paint the kerbs in our street red white and blue, for the 12th and my mum would not pay for that, because she didn't believe we should deface public property. it is fairly basic stuff! but she felt strongly about it, and we woke up next morning with a massive union flag painted

on the road outside our house, remember 1690 across the top. in saying that, they didn't paint the kerbs outside the house, so it was a phyric victory, but we managed to at least assert that we didn't want that to happen. that was something i was conscious of that going up. but the belief that you had to assert your identity by painting flowers, by having marches. your dad was a member of the order, as it would be normal in east belfast, the orange order, but for him and people like him just seems

a perfectly natural thing to do, like being a member of the local club. but he became aware, later in life, too many people and nationals communities that seem to be an aggressive organisation that was very hostile to them. and i suppose there are still many people in northern ireland, protect and rural communities, where older men will go to the lodge because their because their fathers, their brothers, their neighbours were all involved. and it's kind of the community, and it is how they engage with each other, so my dad was in the lodge, both the orange and another one, so he was quite in for. in fact, the 12th, had lodged there from our house to go to the 12th, and he was master of his lot. so i was steeped in that sort of culture, and it was really only when i went to university at queens in belfast that i had my first taste of cross community education integration, who different values, different ideals than i had... you got a glimpse, i'm told, at school, from a teacher, he gave you a glimpse that you didn't have to go along. yeah. it sounds odd when my dad is in the orange order, but they were not particularly stance, and my mum wasn't particularly political. at the time kids would scribble

on the blackboard when the teacher wasn't there, and given what was being scribbled on the walls at the time by adults, some of those would be uvf or slogans or whatever. the loyalist pa ramilitaries. yeah, that would have been scribbled. i do remember our teacher when we were in primary school, and she came in and she was cleaning this off the board and she said, these are bad people. you should not be writing this on the board. it was quite a brave thing to say given that some of the kids in class, their parents might have been involved in those organisations. she said these were bad people, it will ruin your life if you get involved. we were only about eight or nine at the time, and the conversation very quickly progressed but people saying, how do you vote for, how do you vote for? and she said, the alliance party. and i didn't really know who the alliance party were, but i thought this was fascinating,

so i told the story to my mum and dad, and my father, jokingly, said, you should tell her that she needs to be careful, because you stand in the middle of the road you will get knocked down. i have to say i have heard that many times since! and he was wrong, was he? he certainly was, but i went back to school and told my teacher and she said to me, tell your father much better to be in the middle of the road

than in the gutter, dear. and i thought this was fascinating that this debate was happening. and i told my dad and hejust laughed and said, good for her. it is a brave thing to go against the politics of your father, to go against the politics of own community, to stand up to the threats which they undoubtedly were, of violence. had i think no direct consequences from the troubles, but you do remember as a young girl the experience of watching other people go through this sort of tragedy. i remember i was very involved with the girl guides, and i was and the gang show and the opera house. there was a big group of us are performing, and we had had a really good run that week, and the saturday night performance was a special performance, because we were going to be joined by lady cecily gibson, who was the chief guide in northern ireland, her husband lord justice gibson, was a seniorjudge, and they were travelling back from dublin, and there was an explosion and they were killed. and they were murdered in that explosion. and i remember us being brought

together before the performance and told what had happened, because she had come and visited during rehearsals and she had shown great interest, and we were excited for her to come and see the final show. and we were told what had happened, and then we went on with the show. many people put concludes in your community, yourfamily, the need to fight the ira, we need to fight sinn fein, the party, that supports as well. we need to come in other words, to back the traditional unionist parties. you chose a different path. you say that your school teacher recommended it, you see that you and your husband met at queens university, you had your first exposure relate to people of a different politics. you had to choose a side? i think they were a couple of things. i think first of all choosing a side had never really served my community well, so, yes, i came from a unionist background

and many would say unionists were in a much more positive position, but i grew up in a terraced house, two up, two down, outside toilet, very little progress in our community. the whole thing was from politicians that they could rely on getting your support, but they didn't really have to do much in return. and to suppose my first experience when i was at university, i approach my then mp peter robertson and i asked for his help with an issue, a financial issue, and i didn't get any response. and ijust thought, what is the point of politics of people out there to help when you need it? we have spoken tojohn allardice, an alliance councillor who went on to be leader of the party. was that meeting, that assistance, crucial to your decision? it was certainly crucial in terms of

politics was a pointless exercise, because that had been my perception, i guess, growing up in northern ireland wasn'tjust about people picketing on television, and i apologise to people who now see me doing that! but i didn't see how it delivered for people, and resolve the problem and did it quickly, i suddenly thought, actually, you can't do politics in a way that will make a difference to people, but will actually make their lives a bit easier. and i like that because i'm a province of about nature, and that is how i approach my. how good did it feel, when in 2010, you defeated that man who refused to help you, or ignored your plea, peter robinson, when you run against him to take the house of commons seat. he had held the seat for 31 year. he narrowly won it at the expense of one of the party's founder leaders, so there was a particular resonance for the party in winning that seat. for me, i suppose we had had a difficult relationship right from the outset with a dup in east

belfast. i have never personalised it, it was never about bringing down peter robinson, it was about winning for alliance. but they wanted to bring you down, because the unionist parties all clubbed together five years later to get to it, but they successfully did. do they tell you, and you have talked about being late night on twitter when you shouldn't be, i suspect they think there are a traitor, don't they? they think you protrude you roots, that you are actually helping sinn fein to success, because you are not helping them. in northern ireland, this desire that we all have to take a side is pretty strong, and the local terminology is a londy, which harks back to the siege of derry. i get that sewing at me occasionally. what i do i do for my community, because i believe that the opportunities northern ireland can have as a peaceful place, and work together instead of pulling apart, are so much greater than the opportunities we have with division. and it isn't to dismiss the past,

it matters and we have to deal with that and in a way that has integrity, and i don't excuse what the ira did and i certainly don't accept that it was valid. but i do believe very strongly that we have an opportunity as a result of the good friday agreement to move beyond that conflict and start to look at how do we re—gear our society in a way that we can respectfully disagree on the constitutional position but still work together on the health service, the state of our communities, on housing, on the cost of living crisis. all those things that actually really impact on so many people. this is not a news interview, for a detailed conversation about something that makes people yawn with boredom or scratch their head with bafflement, the northern ireland protocol, important though of course it is. let me just put something of the principle to you.

what ministers in westminster say is, we have to listen to unionists�* objecting to this thing that makes him feel less british. we have to listen to the fact that businesses in northern ireland, some of them, find it a lot harder to do business with the uk than it did before. because that is what we need to do to support the good friday agreement to make sure there is peace. we can'tjust back one side and not the other. you think they are wrong. why? first of all, i think they are being disingenuous, because that's all stems back to brexit, and no—one listened to the majority of people in northern ireland over brexit, not even to the degree of brexit we would end up with. the people of scotland and northern ireland said no to brexit, the people of northern ireland, the vast majority, the overwhelming

numbers in northern ireland, said that we shouldn't have brexit, and it was clear that what we needed to do, if you look at our politics, for example, was that we needed some kind of soft landing zone, and we were denied that by the dup and the conservatives. given that you like to stress the positive, can you see a way out? of course. first of all, in terms of how we deal this, there is always a way out, but it is the same way that that is for northern ireland and its difficulties, respect, negotiation and trust. but trust also has to be between the unionist community and the british government, so you can't do a deal with brussels if they haven't yet done a deal with the unionists, can they? actually, they can, because international relationships is not of ofcom and the good friday agreement and the requirement for cross community consent only applies to those issues which are devolved matters, not to those which are in. in northern ireland and a majority of nationalists opposed it. let's look at a different issue the government are dealing with, legacies from the

so—called troubles. in other words, a legacy of violence. actually looking at inquiries that have never been completed and trying to conclude them. they are about to take action there which will have an application for the devolved government, they have no support from any political party. when michelle o'neill was on this programme, the leader of sinn fein in the north, she said she thought there would be a united ireland, quite possibly in her lifetime. do you? i don't know. it's impossible to say. before brexit, i would have said, odds—on, probably not. since then, things have been much more fluid, and people who would have been previously unionist, though i would have said pragmatic unionist, perhaps is the way to describe them,

who were content with the status quo, less content with the status quo than previously. is that the best way to describe you? not really. i don't really have... i suppose i don't really define myself in that way. but you must have a view. not necessarily, because i don't really need to have a view right now, because it's not a pressing question, and as i have said before, i'm a practical, pragmatic politician... if everyone is going around having an argument about something there is a fundamental, are you seriously saying that when you are home with michael, pouring a glass of wine, i think of all that? you don't have an opinion on it? i don't have a strong opinion as to what is the best outcome for northern ireland, but i do see, as everyone else does, that every time the government intervenes in ways that are damaging to northern ireland or upsetting to the political process here, that it makes the argument for northern ireland remaining if you woke up in an united ireland, you wouldn't be in despair?

i recognise that every time that unionism reacts in this kind of over—the—top way, it discombobulates nationalists in northern ireland, who suddenly feel like, what's the point of giving this a go when we could have unity instead? and i just think that unionism in some ways has dealt itself every kind of self harming blow with brexit and with the reaction to the protocol. i think it is unhelpful. i just want to return to something personal before being wound up. you referred to the late nights on twitter, you refer to the fact that it is likely fighting about i imagine that you have a lifetime of being... abused. i get a lot of abuse, but not exclusively on social media. i had an e—mail recently, i was on rte during the election

and we had just won a lot of seats. i was rushed onto the podium to speak. it was a difficult election campaign for me, my father—in—law passed away from cancer after quite a long battle. he was buried on election day, so it was not an easy election for us. and i gave my interview and got home, opened by e—mail, and some gentlemen i think i use the term lightly — had e—mailed me to tell me that my hair was a mess and that i hadn't seen a stylist in a long time, and i could do with working on my presentation. i wrote back and i said i wasn'tjust hoping people would vote for us, they had come in more significant numbers than ever before, and i said, for the last number of weeks i have been doing a number of things, i have been running my department i have been leading my party

to unparalleled success in an election, i have less to me than my hair, but thank you for reminding me that something does — your opinion of it! because the idea that somebody bothered to send me an e—mail about my share was... i was incredulous. but that is not that unusual. we are constantly getting advice about what will look about our weight, but the tone of her voice. it should let this. finally, give me one tip, how do you... because there will be people listening to this thinking, how do you do it? how do you tolerate that level of abuse, and why would you still tell others, as i suspect you were come as a party leader, to follow you into politics? i have a strong support network and i have a good sense of humour! of the people dishing out the abuse, and imagine how sad and empty of their lives must be more and remind yourself that your life is neither, and just move on.

naomi long, leader of the alliance party in northern ireland, thank you very much forjoining me on political thinking. thank you. there is a sense that the plates are moving into northern irish politics. that perhaps in future politics will not simply be defined by which side of the constitution you are on, but, and it is a mighty big but, if there really is going to be a referendum like the one we saw in scotland, on the future constitutional status of northern ireland, if people have to choose, simply that they are in favour of the union, staying in the uk, or of irish unity, it will be very hard for people and that story that naomi long was told by her father,

people in the middle of the road, not to get run over. thank you for watching. hello there. a quiet start to our sunday. nothing particularly out of the ordinary to report so far. which will make it feel noticeably cooler on exposed coasts today. a few scattered showers in north—west scotland and that northwesterly wind driving a little bit more cloud further south. a few scattered showers by the end of the afternoon lingering across south—west england. on exposed north and west facing coasts, noticeably cooler, but we might see temperatures peak into the low 20s in the south east. those showers will continue to lingerfor a time through the night but clearer skies further north — that means those temperatures falling away. it's going to be a chilly start to our monday morning, but a quiet starts to monday. a lot of dry, settled and sunny weather to begin with. as we go through the day, we'll see cloud thickening in the far north west and showery outbreaks of rain entering into scotland and maybe northern ireland by the end

of the day. ahead of it, with the sunshine, a degree or so warmer. highs likely of 22 celsius.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. people in france are voting in parliamentary elections, as the party founded by president macron seeks to maintain control of the national assembly. the british transport secretary accuses union leaders of "punishing millions of innocent people" by pressing ahead with rail strikes later this week. itjust seems that the union is determined to go out on strike, the rmt, come what may and i think it is a very sad situation and i call on them to reconsider. western leaders including borisjohnson, have warned that russia's war against ukraine may go for years and support for kyiv must be sustained whatever the cost. and america becomes the first country in the world to approve use of the so—called mrna covid vaccines for babies.