Talk about giving with one hand and taking away with the other: this morning’s Irish Times has as its lead headline ‘Large majority of voters favour a united Ireland, poll finds’. Then under that headline ‘Strong opposition remains for any change to national flag or anthem’. The paper goes on to list in detail the findings of the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll. Elsewhere in the paper, Pat Leahy has a piece headed ‘Yes, we want to see a united Ireland eventually – but what’s your hurry?’
I could say that this habit of pollsters asking the public “Would you vote for a united Ireland tomorrow?” is baffling, since it’s asking a question about something that can’t possibly happen. But it’s been asked so often now, I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t be baffled and that there’s method to this madness.
If you ask the average Joe or Joan would they like a united Ireland tomorrow, assuming they’re in possession of their mental faculties they will say no. Who wants chaos, probably violence, several years of churn and turmoil? But were you to ask – which the Irish Times poll appears to have done, although maybe people volunteered their view on this without questioning – if you ask ‘Would you like to have a united Ireland by 2030?’, I have a suspicion the answer would be Yes by a spanking majority.
The Irish Times also tells us that around 70% of people in the south are opposed to a change the flag or the anthem in the event of unity. Note, mark you, that they weren’t asked ‘Would you discuss a change in the flag?’ or ‘Discuss a change in the anthem’. Had they been, I suspect the pollsters would have got a different response. As Mary Lou McDonald and others have made clear, there needs to be discussion and debate, organisation and planning, before the island of Ireland can become a single state.
It’s not rocket-science. We should not allow ourselves to be manipulated either by southern unionists or northern unionists. A border poll needs to be prefaced by planning, citizens’ assemblies, further research into the cost of a united Ireland and the new state’s future prospects. Only then will we be safe from the Brexit virus, which infects people in such a way that they make a historic vote to defect from the EU on the basis of lies on a bus and lies about their future outside the EU.
On this side of the Irish Sea, we could do worse than start with the research contained in the excellent A New Ireland: a ten-year plan by Paul Gosling. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish.
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