In a book I published five years ago, I referred to the danger that Sinn Féin’s placing all its hopes for the achievement of a united Ireland on a possible border poll involved the risk that one day they would be exposed like Han Christian Andersen’s Emperor.
Many readers will be familiar with the phrase and with the plot which revolves around two conmen who persuade the Emperor that only he is smart enough to see something that is completely impossible to achieve. Anyone who wished not to be thought stupid went along with the pretence until it all rather embarrassingly fell apart.
That is not to claim that the achievement of a united Ireland is a fantasy. The fantasy and the pretence is that it can be achieved through a border poll – or even that such a poll is likely to be held any time soon, as within even ten years, in the first instance. (The only valid poll, in my opinion, would be a 32-county poll asking exactly the same question north and south on same day.)
I borrowed the title of that book, A Tunnel to the Moon, from former H-Block blanketman and presider over the discussion site The Pensive Quill, Anthony McIntyre, who likened the probability of a united Ireland being achieved through the Good Friday Agreement to the prospects of reaching the moon through a terrestrial tunnel.
Today’s Ipsos poll published in the Irish Times once again, and for the umpteenth time, proves that this is so. 50% of those polled in the Six Counties stated that they support Northern Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom. Just 27% said they favoured Irish unity. Another 18% said that they did not know, and 5% that they wouldn’t bother voting at all.
There is little comfort to be garnered by Sinn Féin from the poll, particularly given the significant numbers of Catholics (more than 20%) who are effectively unionists, whatever party they may vote for. The only crumb is that 55% of those surveyed in the north said they would like to see a referendum, or border poll, on the issue.
Unfortunately for Sinn Fein a poll remains in the gift of the British government – as the party know well themselves from the deal they signed up to in 1998.
For a party so much devoted to the Good Friday Agreement and its partitionist institutions, they don’t appear too well acquainted with the actual text.
Certainly not with the relevant section, Annex A, Schedule 1(2) which sets out that “Subject to paragraph 3, the Secretary of State shall exercise the power under paragraph 1 (to hold a poll)if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland.”
There is no such evidence and there has not been such evidence over the past quarter of a century. In 1998, the combined vote for parties who supported a united Ireland in the Stormont Assembly was 40%. In May last, this had risen by less than 1% to 40.8%. There is virtually no chance that that figure will reach close to 50% and convince the British government to call a poll.
Likewise, while some nationalists have resorted to the distinctly unrepublican hope that the Fenians will outbreed the Orangies at some stage – deeply ironic given the strong support for abortion within Sinn Féin and the SDLP – the recent Census provides little solace either.
While persons identifying themselves as Catholics or from a Catholic background now comprise the largest religious group, at 45.7%, that is not synonymous with those who identify themselves ethnically as Irish. Interestingly that figure of 29.1% is remarkably close to the 27% in the Ipsos poll who support Irish unity. It is also close to the sort of support Sinn Fein get in elections, 29% in fact last May. Similarly, the vote for unionist parties was over 53%.
The almost 60% who identify as British, Northern Irish or ‘British and Northern Irish’ is likewise not too far from the number who state that they wish Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK. Indeed, some of that number are likely to support the other, albeit marginal, option of an independent Northern Ireland.
So on what possible grounds are Sinn Féin claiming that either a referendum/poll on unity is likely, or that it would lead to a vote in favour of Irish unity? Mind you, as one Twitter wag has observed, their hyperactive social media brigade has been unusually quiet today.
No doubt they will come up with a new directive from the Politburo in the coming days that will allow the believers to continue to hone their shovels for another assault on the moon. Many of their activists believe pretty much anything anyway, as was also recently pointed out by Anthony McIntyre when he observed that the only people he knew in Belfast who believed that Gerry Adams was never in the IRA were people who had been in it at the same time.
But do they even believe in it themselves? Or is the border poll an essential comfort blanket and a never never promise designed to provide the ongoing and perhaps perpetual illusion that a movement that effectively surrendered its core objective a quarter of a century ago is still on course for victory? Except that their victories now are on par with setting out to climb Everest and raising your flag on Cave Hill.
What the figures do show when assessed on a national basis is that there is a majority in favour of a united Ireland. Just as there was in 1918, the last time there was a 32-county vote on the issue. The entire point of Partition, which republicans opposed, was that it blocked the establishment of a 32 county stat, through every means including state terrorism.
How to bring that about, with protections for the currently other main national/ethnic group on the island, remains the key.
If things proceed as they are, this question will be irrelevant within a generation. “Irish unity within the EU” – as is the “vision” of Sinn Féin – is as meaningless as the “vision” of those who sent young men to charge at German trenches for Home Rule.