British prime minister Andy Burnham caused a flap when he said holding a poll on Irish unity was “off the table”. To some, his words seemed categorical, dismissive and at variance with the Belfast Agreement, which provides for a poll on Irish unity to ascertain the wishes of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland. It obliges the British and Irish governments to give effect to the outcome of the poll if a majority vote for a united Ireland.
On the face of it, the entitlements of the people of Northern Ireland to a poll and the corresponding obligations of the British government to hold one if it appears to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland likely that a majority if polled would vote for Irish unity, are never “off the table”. These are continual and enduring rights and duties.
But the Belfast Agreement also recites, and the parties to the agreement and the two governments acknowledged, that the majority in 1998 favoured remaining in the United Kingdom. That was the factual position then. Has it changed? Has Brexit and demography and politics changed that pro-union majority into a minority?
While it could be argued that the Secretary of State could hold a poll without being of the view that, as a matter of likelihood, a majority would vote for a united Ireland, the legal and treaty obligation to hold a poll only has effect if it appears a majority would vote for Irish unity.
Either way, if a poll were held and if a majority did not vote for Irish unity, there would be no obligation to hold another one for seven years. That would put the question of a poll on Irish unity temporarily “off the table” as a matter of law.
But it seems that Burnham was not using the phrase “off the table” in a legal sense. There is no credible evidence that a current majority of voters in Northern Ireland would vote for a united Ireland and to leave the UK if a poll were held today or in the immediate future. Nobody has produced any evidence suggesting the contrary.
The most that can be said is that doctrinaire unionist sentiment among voters is weakening somewhat. There is some indication that unionists are more willing to consider the possibility and implications of a united Ireland than previously.
If that is the factual position, there is no legal obligation to hold a poll on Irish unity in the short term. Holding a poll now on Irish unity to test the waters and perhaps settle the matter for at least seven years would, in my view, be a regressive decision. It would polarise politics even further and set the clock back in the quest for cross-community reconciliation, perhaps for decades. It would achieve nothing positive that could not be achieved by well conducted opinion surveys; it could inflame sectarian and communal divisions to no useful purpose.
In the final analysis, a poll favouring Irish unity will only succeed if a majority of voters on some future polling day goes into polling stations and in the privacy of a voter’s booth decides that it is their individual judgment – and in their own interest – that Northern Ireland should cease to exist as a part of the UK and join a sovereign Irish state of some kind.
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In political terms, that entails choosing between two packages on offer – a united Ireland or the status quo. Those who call and campaign for a united Ireland will have to develop a united Ireland package that is clearly preferable to the status quo in the minds of a majority.
Where and what is that package? Is it a unitary all-island state? Or is it a confederal Ireland? Might it be the 32-county socialist republic demanded by Sinn Féin? Or would it be based on a new constitution for the whole island, which the majority in the South would also support and enact? Who would draft it? What would it say differently on property rights, language rights, gender issues, asylum rights, citizenship rights, denominational education, among other issues? Who would pay for such a package and how much would it cost?
And how would it deal with the enduring rights guaranteed under the Belfast Agreement to British citizenship and identity for people in Northern Ireland? How would we cope with radical opposition among loyalists?
These are all very real issues the solution to which has not been placed “on the table” in any credible way. And any majority – North or South – would have to be satisfied with the unity package on most, if not all, of them.
As someone who favours Irish unity and reconciliation, I wonder if realism requires us to endeavour to work together and conciliate on solutions.