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Northern Ireland has a nationalist majority, but that doesn’t mean reunification will happen soon

The North’s intractable Gordian knot of disdain and desire is not loosening any time soon, an analysis of voting trends shows

The nature of Irishness, Britishness and islandness will be significant debating points in the next decade or two. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien
Philip McGuinness
Wed Aug 28 2024 - 06:00

In 2022, Northern Ireland went nationalist-majority for the first time. Yet opinion polls show that, since 2021, support for reunification in the North is falling. How can we make sense of this apparent paradox, and how will it impact upon a reunification referendum campaign?

In the 2022 Assembly election, nationalist candidates gained 41.9 per cent of the vote, just behind the unionist bloc share of 42.4 per cent. However, analysis of Alliance and Green Party transfers shows that nationalist candidates gained a greater share of transfers from these centre-ground (or Other) parties than unionist candidates did. If the estimated Other transfers’ share to nationalist candidates is added to the nationalist bloc share, nationalists gained 51.2 per cent. This share (let’s call it the notional nationalist bloc) increased to 51.7 per cent in the 2023 local elections. The notional unionist bloc was 47.6 per cent last year. (This analysis is not possible for the 2024 UK general election, as PR is not used.)

You might think, then, that all is looking rosy for reunificationists as they plan for a Border poll campaign. Think again.

Since 2021, fewer voters in the North back reunification. To complicate the picture even further, a greater share of Northerners, according to the Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) annual survey, now regard themselves as nationalist since 2020, which was the high point for pro-reunification polling numbers. At the same time, the huge voting changes that occurred immediately after the Brexit referendum (unionist drop and Alliance surge) seem to have stabilised.

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The next decade is likely to see further incremental growth for the nationalist vote share, as the 2021 census shows that 59 per cent of over 65s are Protestant compared with a 38 per cent figure for Catholics. However, for under 15s, those figures are 33 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively. No single-year age cohort had a Catholic figure more than 50 per cent. From the age of 10 downwards, the Catholic percentage declines. What are the implications of these census figures for Northern politics? Given the close relationship between religion (or lack of) and party in Northern Ireland, it is likely that – barring a dramatic electoral paradigm-shift – the 2035-2045 decade will see electoral stasis, with nationalism perhaps 5 per cent ahead of unionism, but probably just below 50 per cent. By 2045, we may have had a nationalist First Minister for 21 years.

Currently, the percentage of Northerners who desire reunification is only three-quarters of those who vote for nationalist candidates. Should that ratio hold into the future, the nationalist share of the vote would have to be 67 per cent for there to be 50 per cent in favour of reunification. Nobody is forecasting such a high nationalist share ever occurring. There is no path to reunification via nationalist-only voters. The North’s intractable Gordian knot of disdain and desire is not loosening any time soon.

The discrepancy between a notional nationalist majority and a pro-unity minority of only one-third of voters highlights the importance of Other voters in any Border poll on reunification. Alliance and Green Party voters are content to be multi-identity: voting for Other candidates with their first preference but giving their lower preferences to communal party candidates.

Most of these Other voters are repelled by the narrow certainties of unionist and republican politicians (in 2023, the SDLP gained 50 per cent of Alliance transfers when candidates from the four major communal parties were available). It is likely that unity-curious Other voters will vote against a reunification plan that does not attempt to be as inclusive as possible towards the Ulster British community. Is the population of the Republic willing to develop such a generous vision, which will be a challenge to separatist instincts and pride in the symbols and trappings of the partitioned state?

Of course, this cuts both ways. In a Border poll campaign, pro-Union campaigners will need to articulate a transformative and genuinely inclusive vision that will be attractive to Alliance voters. That campaign, when it happens, will have a dynamic we cannot yet imagine, with the eruption of issues relating to the nature of both the British and Irish states that will threaten to derail the narrative for both sets of campaigners. For example, are unionists willing to dismantle the sectarian nature of the monarchy so that northern Catholics feel as welcome and cherished in the UK as Protestants feel?

Nationalists gained the largest vote share at the last local elections; there is a nationalist First Minister; and there have been more nationalist than unionist MPs since 2019. Yet this hat-trick of electoral achievements has not brought a Border poll closer: Keir Starmer has said a Border poll is “not even on the horizon”, though he since softened his tone on a visit to Northern Ireland in July. Sinn Féin’s Northern vote share has increased but, when it is calculated as a percentage of the non-unionist vote, seems to have declined since 2015 to less than 50 per cent. This indicates that most non-unionist voters are sceptical of that party’s approach to reunification.

The British government is probably likely to commit to a Border poll only when a majority of Stormont MLAs vote in favour of having one. How do northern reunificationist campaigners and the Irish Government persuade a majority of Alliance MLAs to vote for a Border poll? Will Alliance allow a free vote for that scenario? Will a transformed vision for a new Ireland be attractive or repellent to a majority of voters in the Republic? The nature of Irishness, Britishness and islandness will be significant debating points in the next decade or two.

Philip McGuinness is an independent scholar and a former lecturer in computer science at Dundalk Institute of Technology