To be honest, there’s nothing particularly surprising about the 2024 Northern Ireland General Election Survey, details of which were published in Tuesday’s Irish News. But the lack of surprise won’t matter one jot to the people who drill through the details to pinpoint the particular findings which underpin a personal opinion which hasn’t shifted for years.
In other words, the pro-Union lobby will be happy with 48.6% support, even though it represents a dip of almost 5% since the 2019 survey. And they’ll be happy because the Irish unity lobby is 15% behind them at 33.7%. Meanwhile, the Irish unity lobby will point to the fact that, for the first time ever, pro-union support doesn’t represent an overall majority; and they’ll also note that the 18-25 generation indicates a split of 47.7% to 47.7%. Which means, or so they hope, that their day will come, even if they have to wait longer than some in Sinn Féin and Ireland’s Future think.
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The Don’t Knows — the agnostics demographic which seems to be building around Alliance — represent 14%, not nearly enough to push Irish unity over the line, but certainly a big enough pool which, if properly fished, could be hugely beneficial to the pro-Union lobby. So, it might help if some elements of unionism and loyalism stopped banging on about Alliance being SF-lite, especially as the survey suggests that almost two-thirds of Alliance voters don’t, at this point anyway, support the unity project.
Nothing in this survey, or in any other survey for that matter, will stop SF or Ireland’s Future from insisting on a border poll as soon as possible. Most of them would admit that unity isn’t in the bag, let alone anywhere near it, but believe that a border poll would have to be followed by others at regular intervals—making it easier for them to keep the momentum and pressure on the ultimate goal.
But as Professor Jon Tonge noted in his analysis in Tuesday’s paper, “based upon the overall survey findings, the Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, won’t be calling a border poll anytime soon” (even though 62% overall believe, according to the survey, that one should be held in the next two decades). By which time most of the present key players in the Irish unity lobby will either be elderly or pushing up the daisies; so maybe they should focus less on the poll and more on succession planning.
One other thing is likely — and I’ve written about it in pieces for this paper when I’ve been considering Leo Varadkar’s possible role in the unity project — is that I think the British and Irish governments will set in legislative stone the precise terms and conditions for both the calling and management of a border poll. Leaving it all to some undefined moment when a secretary of state thinks it ‘likely’ the unity side would win the poll is, to put it frankly, utterly, utterly barking.
I know quite a few on the pro-Union side would be discomfited by such a move: but they are wrong to be. Unionism has a long and unhappy history of being surprised by British governments when they’ve been bounced into situations over which they have extraordinarily little control.
I think the British and Irish governments will set in legislative stone the precise terms and conditions for both the calling and management of a border poll. Leaving it all to some undefined moment when a secretary of state thinks it ‘likely’ the unity side would win the poll is, to put it frankly, utterly, utterly barking
Knowing what to expect and when to expect it would, I think, be a very welcome change for them; and, if nothing else, it would certainly allow them to prepare a thought-through strategy for winning rather than resorting to the usual old after-the-losing-again whingeing process.
A much more important story was in the Irish News on Tuesday. On the front page, as it happens. A story about a radical education reform plan (supported by education minister Paul Givan) which some say ‘lacks critical detail’. Apparently his department will set out the proposals for reform in more detail within the next few weeks, but I’m not clear if they will form part of the official Programme for Government (the draft version of which is still out for consultation) or whether this is a costed add-on or a separate set of proposals which will be pre-prioritised over what’s already in the draft.
It’s one of a number of big issues here-and-now stories we’ll see over the coming months, each and every one of which is much more important than the push for a border poll. When that poll does come — which I think it will — the shape NI is in at the time will be a key part in how people vote.
So, maybe, just maybe, we could focus on the good governance of the place we live in right now, rather than squabble over what a united Ireland might or might not look like decades down the line?
