With the benefit of hindsight, it now looks as though the 1999 result represents the high water mark of Irish Nationalist voting strength within Northern Ireland. What is useful about the Euro election results is that they treat the Province as a single constituency, and are conducted under PR. Thus, there is no need for tactical voting, and it is fairly easy to gauge the voting strength of the Nationalist and Unionist blocs.Indeed, although that's a fact the Horseman and his merry band of ethno-nat number crunchers consistently ignore...rather obviously it's the number of votes cast at the ballot box which count, not overflowing Catholic maternity wards and Prod graveyards.
Over the past ten years, the gap between Unionist and Nationalist support has remained unchanged, at 7%.
Having said that (and bearing Popper in mind;)) Sean's first sentence is the present truth and those who value the Union in Northern Ireland should be no way complacent about the future. We need to make the continuance of the United Kingdom as attractive a prospect as possible to as mnay people as possible within Northern Ireland and play a much more pro-active role than we have to date in the bigger UK-wide debate. There won't be a great deal of point "safeguarding" Northern Ireland's place within the Union if that Union itself no longer exists.
8 comments:
it now looks as though the 1999 result represents the high water mark of Irish Nationalist voting strength within Northern Ireland
Hmmm. It represents the high water so far, it was John Hume's last election in the aftermath of his crowning achievement, a time when nationalist confidence was sky high (and SF were also resurgent). The reason the differential has remained constant since then has more to do with the narrowing of the turnout differential than persuading new voters to vote unionist. The Unionist vote has also fallen to below 50% in the intervening period too..
Lies, damned lies, and statistics I guess ;-)
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics I guess ;-)"
Although reassuring ones from a Unionist pov! But, yep, it's a 100%events/situations/personalities will *occur* in the future which will disrupt the balance one way or the other and those pro-Union parties will need to be a lot more pro-active than they are at present if they are to take advantage.
If the only game in town is the current "Ugly Sister" pantomime of the Good Friday Agreement starring the DUP & Sinn Fein then where is the benefit for the people of NI when you consider that the (unofficially) assumed default conclusion is a united Ireland?
Another rhetorical question I think there John. Interesting blog btw!
Sorry, sorry, got carried away.
No need to apologise at all John, imo the disadvantages of devolution far outweigh the advantages, Id only disagree about the default conclusion...eg why did the ROI govt happily insert that bit about its electorate also needing to give an Ok to a UI, surely that vote would be a foregone conclusion, wouldn't it;)
I don´t know how the good people of the ROI would vote. If a Southern Govt. went so far as to ask the electorate, then it would know what answer it wanted to hear and would campaign accordingly. BTW, we have seen how some governments respond when electorates give the "wrong answer". The bit about consent you mention - i can´t help thinking it was a fairly small concession - in practice (politically) it would have been necessary anyway.
If a Southern Govt. went so far as to ask the electorate, then it would know what answer it wanted to hear and would campaign accordingly.
There's a very funny part in Dean Godson's biography of Trimble; Trimble at the time was pushing strongly for the idea of a Border Referendum in NI obviously to decide whether or not we stayed as part of the UK. When informed of the chance of it happening, a high-ranking official in the ROI's government asked in a very anxious tone, "You don't think there's any chance he would lose it do you?"
So, the idea behind the "consent" principle for the ROI as well as NI was quite a clever one on the part of their government. If a vote for Irish *Unity* were to happen tomorrow in NI, there would be more than few worried people in the ROI. Ahern etc learnt from the lesson of the Unification of Germany (when the WG citizens weren't given any say in the matter) and decided i'ts much better to put the responsibility and no doubt, disadvantages *Unity* would bring on the shoulders of the electorate. They then can't complain later about the extra costs, social unrest etc that a 32 county state might bring.
And wouldn't it be the final, delicious irony if it were the electorate of the ROI who decided that partition remains??!!
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