A majority of people in Northern Ireland say they believe the Secretary of State was right to block the Drumcree parade earlier this month.
A slim majority – 53% – said that Sir Chris Bryant was right to block the contentious parade, while the same percentage – 53% – said that the Parade Commission was wrong to authorise the parade in the first place.
The public survey was conducted by More in Common, and published on 28 October, examining public opinion across the North following the renewed Drumcree parade dispute in Portadown.
In September, the Parades Commission issued a determination allowing the Portadown District Orange Lodge to parade along the Garvaghy Road with conditions on the parade’s size, timing and music. It was the first time that the Commission had permitted the return of the parade on the Garvaghy Road since 1998.
1,019 adults were surveyed between 9 and 20 October, following the decision of the NI Secretary to block the Orange Order parade along the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road.
Most people said they thought the Secretary of State got it right and the Parades Commission got it wrong.
Nationalist and Alliance voters overwhelmingly backed the Secretary of State, whilst most unionist voters said he was wrong.
However, Protestants as a whole were more divided (54 per cent said he was wrong, while 28 per cent said he was right).
The polling found that each community thinks the Parades Commission favours the other side, and only around a quarter thinks it treats both equally.
More sympathised with the Garvaghy Road residents (38 per cent) than the Portadown Orangemen (21 per cent), but two in five polled did not pick a side.
TUV voters were more supportive of the Orangemen (79 per cent) as Sinn Fein voters were of the residents (81 per cent). Three in five DUP voters (59 per cent) sided with the Orangemen, but half of UUP voters did not pick a side, and among Protestants as a whole, more took no side (44 per cent) than backed the Orangemen (42 per cent).
Most people polled said that they understood the other side, even if they didn’t side with it. Almost three in five Protestants (57 per cent) said they understood why the residents felt the way they did. Over half of Catholics (51 per cent) said the same of the Orangemen – while almost half (46 per cent) said they understood both.
The polling also found that Drumcree is being discussed in families rather than across the device. 44 per cent of people said they had discussed it with older relatives, whilst 15 per cent had talked about it with friends from a different community background. Only 7 per cent posted about it online or in group chats.
Four in five people polled (82 per cent) said it matters that the dispute ends without violence – twice the share who said the same about the parade not going ahead (41 per cent) and nearly three times the share who said it mattered than it does (30 per cent).
STORMONT ‘USELESS’ AND A ‘CIRCUS’
Two in three voters of every party said avoiding violence mattered a great deal.
Three in five (60 per cent) said they want parading arrangements that have kept the peace left alone, even if one side feels they are unfair. The same share wants the Portadown Lodge to accept the decision and not apply again.
Alliance and Nationalist voters overwhelmingly want the Lodge to accept the decision, while most DUP and TUV voters want it to keep pressing. UUP voters were split 47 per cent to 41 per cent in favour of pressing on.
Two in three polled (64 per cent) said the Assembly and the Executive make little or no difference to their own lives; only 6 per cent said it made a great deal of difference. When asked to describe Stormont in one word, the most common response was “useless.”
Other words used to describe the Northern Ireland power-sharing Government included “unstable,” “circus,” “corrupt,” “irrelevant,” “ridiculous,” and “unreliable.”