Unless the party sets a timeframe for a poll, its words will ring hollow
By Martin Burns
Over the last several weeks, SDLP leaders like Claire Hanna, MP and Matthew O’Toole, MLA, have been articulate advocates for a united Ireland. For example, Hanna has been travelling throughout the north of Ireland talking to people about what a new Ireland might look like. As an SDLP Facebook page put it:
Over the last few months, SDLP Leader Claire Hanna MP has been travelling across Northern Ireland on a different kind of political tour. From Limavady to Enniskillen, Cookstown to Holywood, these town hall events have brought together people of all backgrounds for real conversations about the present and the future. Because if we’re serious about creating change and building a New Ireland the right way, it has to start with people and communities right where they live.
This is all excellent work and necessary to start the planning process for a border poll. In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, Hanna discussed an event her party was holding on constitutional change. Hanna correctly identified the fact that “change is happening all around us” and that “the risk is unprepared change.” Hanna is right that the winds of change are blowing throughout Ireland and that not preparing for a border poll would be disastrous. All we need to do is remember the chaos a hasty and ill-conceived Brexit unleashed upon the north of Ireland.
Where Hanna and the rest of the SDLP miss the mark is in not calling for a date for a border poll. This is in sharp contrast with Sinn Fein which has called for a date for a border poll. The Irish Labour party has also called for a date for a border poll. When I read Hanna’s remarks in the Belfast Telegraph, I was reminded of St. Augustine’s famous quote in his Confessions his prayer to God to “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
By not putting a date to a border poll, Hanna is casting a border poll as something that is not something practical and real, but rather something that is theoretical that might happen in some future decade. Hanna’s refusal to press for a date for a border poll plays perfectly into the hands of the vested interests in the Irish republic who support the status quo.
What I found most troubling in Hanna’s remarks was her redefining of what it would take to win a border poll:
I want a border poll done properly. I don’t think you build the modern pluralist new nation, including the change in the Republic and how it does business and how the economy works. I don’t think you do that by slipping past a tiny majority in a period of chaos.
Now, I would be happy if a huge majority approved a border poll. But what Hanna is doing is reconfiguring what it would take to win a border poll. Would 55% be enough, 60% or more? In saying that you would need more than a “tiny minority” to pass a border poll, Hanna is giving the Unionists and their supporters veto over a border poll.
This is not how a democracy works. Democracy works by a 50% plus one logic. Furthermore, Hanna is rewriting the terms of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. There is nothing in the Agreement saying that it would take a supermajority to pass a border poll. Rewriting the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement is a dangerous proposition.
The SDLP has taken some positive steps in encouraging the debate about what a new and united Ireland might look like. I would urge them to amend their position and call for a date for a border poll. Otherwise, their words in support of constitutional change, no matter how earnest and sincere, will ring hollow.
Unless the party sets a timeframe for a poll, its words will ring hollow
By Martin Burns
Over the last several weeks, SDLP leaders like Claire Hanna, MP and Matthew O’Toole, MLA, have been articulate advocates for a united Ireland. For example, Hanna has been travelling throughout the north of Ireland talking to people about what a new Ireland might look like. As an SDLP Facebook page put it:
Over the last few months, SDLP Leader Claire Hanna MP has been travelling across Northern Ireland on a different kind of political tour. From Limavady to Enniskillen, Cookstown to Holywood, these town hall events have brought together people of all backgrounds for real conversations about the present and the future. Because if we’re serious about creating change and building a New Ireland the right way, it has to start with people and communities right where they live.
This is all excellent work and necessary to start the planning process for a border poll. In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, Hanna discussed an event her party was holding on constitutional change. Hanna correctly identified the fact that “change is happening all around us” and that “the risk is unprepared change.” Hanna is right that the winds of change are blowing throughout Ireland and that not preparing for a border poll would be disastrous. All we need to do is remember the chaos a hasty and ill-conceived Brexit unleashed upon the north of Ireland.
Where Hanna and the rest of the SDLP miss the mark is in not calling for a date for a border poll. This is in sharp contrast with Sinn Fein which has called for a date for a border poll. The Irish Labour party has also called for a date for a border poll. When I read Hanna’s remarks in the Belfast Telegraph, I was reminded of St. Augustine’s famous quote in his Confessions his prayer to God to “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
By not putting a date to a border poll, Hanna is casting a border poll as something that is not something practical and real, but rather something that is theoretical that might happen in some future decade. Hanna’s refusal to press for a date for a border poll plays perfectly into the hands of the vested interests in the Irish republic who support the status quo.
What I found most troubling in Hanna’s remarks was her redefining of what it would take to win a border poll:
I want a border poll done properly. I don’t think you build the modern pluralist new nation, including the change in the Republic and how it does business and how the economy works. I don’t think you do that by slipping past a tiny majority in a period of chaos.
Now, I would be happy if a huge majority approved a border poll. But what Hanna is doing is reconfiguring what it would take to win a border poll. Would 55% be enough, 60% or more? In saying that you would need more than a “tiny minority” to pass a border poll, Hanna is giving the Unionists and their supporters veto over a border poll.
This is not how a democracy works. Democracy works by a 50% plus one logic. Furthermore, Hanna is rewriting the terms of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. There is nothing in the Agreement saying that it would take a supermajority to pass a border poll. Rewriting the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement is a dangerous proposition.
The SDLP has taken some positive steps in encouraging the debate about what a new and united Ireland might look like. I would urge them to amend their position and call for a date for a border poll. Otherwise, their words in support of constitutional change, no matter how earnest and sincere, will ring hollow.