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federation, fina, has voted to restrict the participation of transgender athletes in elite women s events. now on bbc news, it s time for political thinking with nick robinson. hello. welcome to political thinking, a conversation with rather than interrogation of someone whose 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 guest this week is someone whose life and career is based on a refusal to take sides in that 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 ....
It is tiring but it is also motivating. for 100 years, politics in northern ireland has been defined by what side you re on. rua unionist or are you a nationalist? we have a look in the mirror and think, what are you doing thinking you can change that and convince people that politics is about what it is in the rest of the country? sometimes, it feels like an power struggle, but mainly 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 trolls on twitter, which unfortunately i still do despite all the advice to the contrary, they want to put me into a box and pigeonhole me in politics, and at that time i do feel like it is an uphill struggle, but when i talk to the public, when i m out meeting people on the doors, which is minister ofjustice, it makes sense. it doesn t feel strange ....