So far as the referendums in this State are concerned, the issue is not whether they will pass but the scale of the turn-out next Friday. And precisely because it is clear that they will be passed, there must be a danger that the turn-out may not be as high as it ought to be for constitutional votes, especially in view of the huge significance of the vote on the changes required to implement the Belfast Agreement.
But the real concern has to be about the size of the majority for the agreement in Northern Ireland. The assumption is that nationalists will vote overwhelmingly for it, an assumption amply validated by the poll published in yesterday's Irish Times. Of course, any referendum majority, no matter how small, in favour of the agreement will bring into action the legal process that will draw the Northern Ireland electorate back to the polls five weeks later to elect an assembly.
However, if the majority in the referendum is small, this clearly increases the possibility of a failure by the assembly to initiate the process of forming an executive committee, for that process involves first of all choosing jointly a first minister and deputy first minister.
For the choice of these two key ministers to be valid, either a majority of those declaring themselves to be unionists and of those declaring themselves as nationalists must agree on candidates for these two posts. Or else 40 per cent of those declaring themselves to be unionists must do so, together with a sufficient number of others to make up 60 per cent of the assembly's total membership.
With Sinn Fein participating in the assembly, and presumably anxious to see an executive committee elected, that being a prerequisite for the establishment of the North-South ministerial council, the latter condition of a 60 per cent assembly majority would be easily achievable if 40 per cent of unionist members were on board.
Now, going back to the referendum: in last year's general election the "nationalist" turn-out was in fact higher than that for "unionists", and given the much higher proportion of unionist than nationalist "undecideds" in yesterday's poll, the same thing might happen in this referendum also. But if one assumes a similar turn-out by both sections of the community and a 40 per cent Yes vote by supporters of unionist parties as well as a 95 per cent Yes vote by SDLP/Sinn Fein and Alliance supporters, this would yield a referendum majority of 65 per cent.
In other words, if the majority in Northern Ireland supporting the agreement is less than 65 per cent, this probably would imply that less than 40 per cent of unionists had voted for it. In that event, and if Alliance does opt to be classified in the assembly as neither unionist nor nationalist, agreement on electing the two key ministers would be possible only if some of those who vote against the agreement next Friday vote for pro-agreement candidates in the subsequent election.
It is in fact quite possible that such a voting switch would occur, because some UUP voters opposing the agreement are likely to return to their party allegiance in an election. Nevertheless, on the basis of the above assumptions, a majority of 65 per cent upwards in Friday's referendum would be needed to ensure its implementation by the assembly to be elected five weeks later.
It is clear that during the past five weeks expectations of the support the agreement will secure have diminished. Initially there was a fair measure of confidence that it would secure the support of at least half the unionist electorate, which would produce a 70 per cent-plus majority. But from the beginning of this month I have had the feeling that this could prove optimistic, and during the past week it was becoming increasingly evident that the majority is likely to be smaller than this.
Yesterday's Irish Times poll provides a snapshot of opinion in Northern Ireland just three-quarters of the way between the time the agreement was signed and referendum day. Even leaving aside the fact that past experience of political polls in Northern Ireland raises questions about the willingness of some people to state their true position to pollsters, a sample of 500 has a relatively large sampling error. However, taking the results at face value, the poll suggests that 43 per cent of those voting UUP or DUP, but 48 per cent of those describing themselves as Protestants, and fractionally under 70 per cent of the total population, favour the agreement; enough to offer a prospect of the subsequent election yielding an assembly capable of choosing a first and deputy first minister, and thus getting under way an executive committee and subsequently a North-South ministerial council.
If, however, the drift away from support for the agreement of the first five weeks were to continue up to referendum day, the outcome would be in doubt. The key question thus is whether Tony Blair's Thursday speech will halt, or perhaps even reverse, this trend. All is still to play for.
AS so often happens in politics, the issues that seemed so sensitive during the negotiation, in particular constitutional issues such as the new North-South relationship, have since faded into the background. The drift from "undecided" to the No camp among unionists clearly reflects unhappiness with prison releases, decommissioning and police reform, rather than with new political arrangements.
This is not too surprising. For it is clearly difficult for many Northern unionists to see the RUC as anything but their bulwark against terrorism; to that constituency "reform" means weakening this bulwark. Unionists' sense of having been under prolonged siege has made it almost impossible for them to admit any doubts about the past performance of the RUC, or to empathise with nationalist reactions to the manner in which policing has often been carried out. The release of prisoners within two years has also aroused deep resentment and much fear. For most unionists the fact that loyalist as well as IRA paramilitaries are to be released is no consolation: only a minority of the unionist community has any sympathy with men of violence of any hue.
A large part of the problem lies in the fact that at no stage have unionists been given by their political leaders any reason to believe that the cessation of violence is real and permanent. From their leaders they have heard only sceptical voices on this key issue.
Moreover, even if they were convinced that this agreement will bring peace, they would find it hard to accept early releases of people responsible for the murder of so many members of their community, and of the police and army who have protected them. To understand their feelings on this issue, we have only to look at our own reaction to the possibility of men convicted of the murder of Garda McCabe being released as a consequence of the agreement.
Finally, the lack of clarity about decommissioning deeply disturbs them. They do not share our experience of violent groups having dumped their arms as they embrace the democratic system. The only reason they can see for the IRA not handing over their arms, and their Semtex, is that the organisation intends at some point to return to violence.
The justification for the retention of these arms and explosives on the grounds that it is only armies that have been defeated that surrender their equipment, and that the IRA has not been defeated, rings no bells with unionists, who see the IRA as a terrorist group rather than as an army.
Above all, there are very many unionists who reject the idea of Sinn Fein participation in the executive committee to be elected by the assembly unless and until they are satisfied about decommissioning.
It is important that we understand unionist thinking on these issues. Failure to grasp and as far as possible to empathise with their concerns and fears can lead to mistakes being made, such as the decision to release IRA prisoners for the Sinn Fein ardfheis, with its unhappy Michael Stone corollary.
By the time that ardfheis was held it was clear that such releases were not necessary in order to secure an overwhelming vote by Sinn Fein delegates in favour of the agreement. And it should have been equally obvious that the appearance of these prisoners there was bound to evoke a response that would be seriously damaging to the achievement of an adequate majority in favour of the agreement in Northern Ireland. The day before yesterday Tony Blair endeavoured to recover lost ground by making more explicit the conditions to be fulfilled for Sinn Fein to participate in the executive committee to be established by the new Northern Ireland assembly. It remains to be seen whether he has succeeded in pulling back unionist votes in favour of the agreement.