No. Their position is that the constitutional situation of NI isn't the most important thing. Their voters would historically have come more from the unionist community, these days it's a more even split but with a relatively limited presence outside Greater Belfast.
^Yeah. This expresses itself in different ways, but I can speak anecdotally. The members of my family who helped elect Stephen Farry spoke about their defection to Alliance in a fairly localist manner. Really, it was a bit like a vox pop in one of those seats the Lib Dems won in 2022 or 2023.
They were looking for someone who would focus on the local hospital (health issues in the family make this sort of thing their primary concern) and getting the bins taken out, along with a general frustration at constitutional politics overtaking everything else.
