Brexit, The Economist and the myth of a ‘United Ireland’
(The Economist)
Last week, the Economist informed its readers that Northern Ireland’s absorption into the Republic of Ireland “is becoming likelier”. The magazine’s cover story featured an image of a “United Ireland” map (pictured) and interpreted Sinn Fein’s recent election success as a further boost for Irish nationalists, who it thought were already well on the road to realising their ambitions — all thanks to Brexit.
With exquisite timing, yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph published the results of a survey that demolishes the Economist’s theory. The research, led by the University of Liverpool, reveals that just 29 per cent of voters in Northern Ireland would vote for an all-Ireland state if a border poll were held tomorrow. The Union is supported explicitly by 52 per cent, while the remainder is composed of people who aren’t sure or declined to answer. If the “don’t knows” are excluded, 65 per cent favour Northern Ireland remaining in the UK.
That resounding majority was recorded before southern Ireland’s general election, which makes the idea of a tolerant, successful Republic less plausible to wavering voters in Ulster. The sight of Sinn Fein activists belting out pro-IRA tunes was a cold shower for liberals who were attracted by Ireland’s recent social reforms and felt disinclined to leave the EU.
In the Times, the Economist’s Britain Editor, Emma Duncan, claimed opinion polls “tend to show a 50:50 split” on Northern Ireland’s constitutional future. That is a common perception, but, actually, the University of Liverpool survey is in line with most polling since the Brexit referendum.
The annual Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, conducted by Queen’s University, is considered the most authoritative research tracking social and political attitudes in Ulster. The last two polls measured support for the province’s absorption into the Republic at 22 per cent and 19 per cent respectively. Policy Exchange found 23 per cent opposed the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and a BBC poll for the political programme, The View, returned similar results.
Admittedly, online polling by a small Northern Irish agency called LucidTalk suggests greater support for an all-Ireland setup and it echoes results from Lord Ashcroft Polls. The Belfast News Letter investigated the Ashcroft survey and asked whether the fieldwork had been conducted by LucidTalk, but received no clear answer to its question.
Activists will argue about the pros and cons of polling methodology, but they can’t change the fact that most surveys show strong support for the status quo. Unionists may feel reassured by these polls and the University of Liverpool’s research, but they shouldn’t get complacent. The results suggest that up to 40 per cent of respondents consider themselves something “other” than unionist or nationalist. 19 per cent of respondents were either undecided or reluctant to give an answer on the border question.
Equally, there was only minority support for UK-wide parties’ involvement in Northern Ireland elections and only 34 per cent described their national identity as British. The alternative categories, Irish (35 per cent) and Northern Irish (23 per cent), can easily be held in common with a British identity, but the lack of a clear-cut endorsement of UK politics and British citizenship is still worrying.
It seems that a substantial proportion of voters in Northern Ireland are quite content to be considered a “place apart” — retaining a link with Westminster, but semi-detached from the political mainstream. The Brexit deal, and Boris Johnson’s confused interpretation of it, lends credibility to critics who say that the Conservative government doesn’t care about Ulster and won’t stand up for its interests.
This scepticism about the Prime Minister’s commitment to Northern Ireland is likely to deepen if trade negotiations with the EU don’t address the threat of an effective customs and regulatory border down the Irish Sea. You would expect a government that professes its unionist credentials would want enthusiasm for British identity to flourish in all the regions of the UK, including Northern Ireland.
Irish nationalists tend to view the absorption by the Republic of the province as an inevitability, predestined by history. They believe Brexit has accelerated the inexorable process that will bring this outcome about. In contrast, these figures show that people in the province are fairly content with the status quo, and have remained so after the EU vote. Support for an all-Ireland state has increased since the referendum, but not dramatically.
If Brexit did add a new unpredictability to constitutional relationships across the UK, that means they have to be handled with extra care. The government, as well as unionist parties in Northern Ireland, must take responsibility for deepening support for the Union if they want it to endure. That means doing all they can to avoid creating new divisions or barriers between the province and Great Britain.
