They used to say during Tory leadership contests that Conservative MPs were the most sophisticated electorate in the world. Having recently been witness to how the Vatican elects a pope, I’m not sure that claim rings true.
However, I respectfully submit a suggestion for the third podium spot: the voters of Northern Ireland. More so than anywhere else in the Western world, they understand the price of political failure.
As a result, they are hyper-attuned to political events and their repercussions. Instinctively tribal but used to preferential voting in a way that British voters are generally not. This greater interest and deeper understanding about their political choices can have a knock-on effect when it comes to opinion polling around the question of Irish unity.
What we know from 30 or so polls over the past decade is that there is a large variance in the findings. Some polls find the split between United Irelanders and Pro-UKers is fairly-evenly balanced with perhaps a few percentage points difference, while others suggest there’s a largeish, double-digit gap.
Can they both be right?
Yes and no.
As any pollster will tell you, their work is merely a snapshot of opinion on any given day. The public’s mood ebbs and flows and the only real value in polling is to examine the trend; asking the same sorts of questions on a regular basis and observing what pattern emerges.
All of which brings me to the most recent Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey, commissioned by Queens University and the University of Ulster. This is an annual distillation of the public’s opinions on a range of issues, but of particular interest are their views on the constitutional question.
‘Suppose there was a referendum tomorrow on the future of Northern Ireland and you were being asked to vote on whether Northern Ireland should unify with the Republic of Ireland. Would you vote ‘yes’ to unify with the Republic or ‘no’?’
36% responded yes, with 42% saying no – a gap of just 6%.
Significant, given it was 12% in 2023, 14% in 2021 and a whopping 23% back in 2020.Halving every three years. At face value it would appear the Northern Irish public is, overall, warming to the prospect of Irish unity.
It accords with another poll conducted by LucidTalk for the Belfast Telegraph back in February which found that 48% of voters wanted to stay in the UK, with 41% backing Irish unity – a gap of just 7%, with one in ten voters not sure what they would do.
In contrast, the most recent polling from the partnership between The Irish Timesand The Royal Irish Academy’s ARINS programme which was published in March, shows 48% of voters back staying in the UK and 34% opt for unification – a bigger gap of 14%.
Noteworthy, though, that the numbers backing Irish unity have increased by seven points in just three years. (At that rate of attrition, you get a majority for change by 2031).
Perhaps most interestingly, a poll last month from European Movement Ireland (conducted by Amárach Research) found that a commanding majority of respondents across Ireland ‘would support a united Ireland within the EU, with 67% in Northern Ireland and 62% in Ireland in favour.’
What to make of it all?
Perhaps the fundamental issue with all polls is their sheer unreality. Back to my original point: voters in the North are super-canny. They know there isn’t going to be a border poll ‘tomorrow’ or ‘this week.’
Ask a theoretical question and you may get a theoretical answer. It’s the equivalent of taking the latest opinion poll about British politics and then assuming that it accurately predicts the outcome of a 2029 general election.
Many people tell me that although they want to see Irish unity happen, they would not vote for a rushed or botched proposal. This helps to explain the variance between the polls pointing to this as a close-run thing and others that don’t.
The ‘Wobblies,’ as Professor Brendan O’Leary referred to them, when we spoke to him a couple of years ago. In other words, the people actually voting for pro-unity parties in real elections, but who are coy when expressing their constitutional preference to pollsters, thus providing an implausibly large gap between the status quo and Irish unity in some polls.
Studying actual votes in real elections offers us a deeper truth. Indeed, it bears repeating just how close things now are. In the 2022 assembly election, the share of the vote for parties and independent candidates supporting a pro-UK position was 42.1%, while the number backing Irish unity was 41%. A difference of just 1.1%, or a measly 5,123 votes.
In the 2023 locals, pro-United Ireland parties (Sinn Fein, SDLP, People Before Profit and Aontú) triumphed with 41.5% of the vote – the first time this has happened). In contrast, Pro-UK parties (DUP, UUP and TUV) won 38.1%. And in last July’s British general election, unionists had a 3.5% victory in the share of the vote, although they only won a minority of the 18 seats up for grabs.
In which respect LucidTalk is the pollster that most accurately reflects real voting patterns. It is also clear that when presented with a range of scenarios (like the prospect of a 32-County Ireland immediately rejoining the EU) that the numbers in favour of unity substantially increases.
To academics, adding this additional incentive to a questionnaire is ‘push polling’ and warps the result. In response, I would point out their insistence on framing a border poll as an immediate choice is equally contrived.
The simple fact that different methodologies provide different results is why I have previously suggested that we discount polls as hard and fast criteria when it comes to judging whether a border poll is warranted.
Real votes are a more credible guide. However, it’s now becoming clear that whatever metric you present, the prospect of Irish unity is getting closer all the time.
Kevin Meagher is author of ‘A United Ireland: Why Unification I Inevitable and How it Will Come About’ and ‘What A Bloody Awful Country: Northern Ireland’s Century of Division’
They used to say during Tory leadership contests that Conservative MPs were the most sophisticated electorate in the world. Having recently been witness to how the Vatican elects a pope, I’m not sure that claim rings true.
However, I respectfully submit a suggestion for the third podium spot: the voters of Northern Ireland. More so than anywhere else in the Western world, they understand the price of political failure.
As a result, they are hyper-attuned to political events and their repercussions. Instinctively tribal but used to preferential voting in a way that British voters are generally not. This greater interest and deeper understanding about their political choices can have a knock-on effect when it comes to opinion polling around the question of Irish unity.
What we know from 30 or so polls over the past decade is that there is a large variance in the findings. Some polls find the split between United Irelanders and Pro-UKers is fairly-evenly balanced with perhaps a few percentage points difference, while others suggest there’s a largeish, double-digit gap.
Can they both be right?
Yes and no.
As any pollster will tell you, their work is merely a snapshot of opinion on any given day. The public’s mood ebbs and flows and the only real value in polling is to examine the trend; asking the same sorts of questions on a regular basis and observing what pattern emerges.
All of which brings me to the most recent Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey, commissioned by Queens University and the University of Ulster. This is an annual distillation of the public’s opinions on a range of issues, but of particular interest are their views on the constitutional question.
‘Suppose there was a referendum tomorrow on the future of Northern Ireland and you were being asked to vote on whether Northern Ireland should unify with the Republic of Ireland. Would you vote ‘yes’ to unify with the Republic or ‘no’?’
36% responded yes, with 42% saying no – a gap of just 6%.
Significant, given it was 12% in 2023, 14% in 2021 and a whopping 23% back in 2020.Halving every three years. At face value it would appear the Northern Irish public is, overall, warming to the prospect of Irish unity.
It accords with another poll conducted by LucidTalk for the Belfast Telegraph back in February which found that 48% of voters wanted to stay in the UK, with 41% backing Irish unity – a gap of just 7%, with one in ten voters not sure what they would do.
In contrast, the most recent polling from the partnership between The Irish Timesand The Royal Irish Academy’s ARINS programme which was published in March, shows 48% of voters back staying in the UK and 34% opt for unification – a bigger gap of 14%.
Noteworthy, though, that the numbers backing Irish unity have increased by seven points in just three years. (At that rate of attrition, you get a majority for change by 2031).
Perhaps most interestingly, a poll last month from European Movement Ireland (conducted by Amárach Research) found that a commanding majority of respondents across Ireland ‘would support a united Ireland within the EU, with 67% in Northern Ireland and 62% in Ireland in favour.’
What to make of it all?
Perhaps the fundamental issue with all polls is their sheer unreality. Back to my original point: voters in the North are super-canny. They know there isn’t going to be a border poll ‘tomorrow’ or ‘this week.’
Ask a theoretical question and you may get a theoretical answer. It’s the equivalent of taking the latest opinion poll about British politics and then assuming that it accurately predicts the outcome of a 2029 general election.
Many people tell me that although they want to see Irish unity happen, they would not vote for a rushed or botched proposal. This helps to explain the variance between the polls pointing to this as a close-run thing and others that don’t.
The ‘Wobblies,’ as Professor Brendan O’Leary referred to them, when we spoke to him a couple of years ago. In other words, the people actually voting for pro-unity parties in real elections, but who are coy when expressing their constitutional preference to pollsters, thus providing an implausibly large gap between the status quo and Irish unity in some polls.
Studying actual votes in real elections offers us a deeper truth. Indeed, it bears repeating just how close things now are. In the 2022 assembly election, the share of the vote for parties and independent candidates supporting a pro-UK position was 42.1%, while the number backing Irish unity was 41%. A difference of just 1.1%, or a measly 5,123 votes.
In the 2023 locals, pro-United Ireland parties (Sinn Fein, SDLP, People Before Profit and Aontú) triumphed with 41.5% of the vote – the first time this has happened). In contrast, Pro-UK parties (DUP, UUP and TUV) won 38.1%. And in last July’s British general election, unionists had a 3.5% victory in the share of the vote, although they only won a minority of the 18 seats up for grabs.
In which respect LucidTalk is the pollster that most accurately reflects real voting patterns. It is also clear that when presented with a range of scenarios (like the prospect of a 32-County Ireland immediately rejoining the EU) that the numbers in favour of unity substantially increases.
To academics, adding this additional incentive to a questionnaire is ‘push polling’ and warps the result. In response, I would point out their insistence on framing a border poll as an immediate choice is equally contrived.
The simple fact that different methodologies provide different results is why I have previously suggested that we discount polls as hard and fast criteria when it comes to judging whether a border poll is warranted.
Real votes are a more credible guide. However, it’s now becoming clear that whatever metric you present, the prospect of Irish unity is getting closer all the time.
Kevin Meagher is author of ‘A United Ireland: Why Unification I Inevitable and How it Will Come About’ and ‘What A Bloody Awful Country: Northern Ireland’s Century of Division’