I have always been poor at Maths, which maybe explains why I’m reluctant to dive down into the bowels of our political system and come up with numbers that tell you which way the wind is blowing. However, in recent days I have been in contact with a young guy (well, youngish) who approaches figures like a heroin-addict approaching a drug den. So I’ll be drawing on Conor’s investigations from time to time (assuming he maintains his habit).
A recent bit of number-crunching from him charts the path of unionist and nationalist and neutral votes. (Mind you, I don’t think there is actually such a thing as someone who’s neutral on the border. It’s like drink or music or, yes, drugs: you either like them or you dislike them but it’s difficult to act as if they don’t exist. )
Anyway, my man Conor tells me that in 1998, unionist parties totalled 411,369 – that is, 50.8% of the vote; nationalists got 324,339, which was 40% of. the vote; and neutrals registered 74,578, which was 9.2%.
OK – let’s zip along to 2017. Here, unionist parties took 358, 818. votes, which was 44.9% of the votes; nationalists took 334,303 votes or 41.9%; and neutrals took 105, 651, which was 13.2%.
By now you’ve probably noticed which way this thing is going. One more set of figures to go.
In 2022, unionists polled 349, 639, which was 40.5% of the vote; nationalists bagged 353, 069 votes, which was 40.9%; and neutrals polled 160, 565 votes, which was 18.6%.
Looking down the decades, there’s good news (and bad news) for everybody, with the possible exception of those strange creatures, the neutrals. There’s clearly good news for nationalists: they’ve increased their vote take in each of the three years – although their percentage increase is just .9%. There’s good news for unionists: despite predictions of melt-down, they’re separated from nationalists by just .5%.; although their vote total is going down, down, down in each year. The neutrals can feel pretty chuffed, because they’ve gone from 9.2% in 1996 to 18.6% in 2022. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they’re less than half the size of both nationalists and unionists.
Any voting return is relative: how do you look compared to your rivals? Looked at that way, nationalists can feel cheerful, since they’ve increased their total vote by 28, 730 – while unionists have decreased by 61,730. Neutrals increased by 85,987.
If you’re developing a headache with all these figures (my own head is a bit light), here’s the summary.
The nationalist voters are relentlessly overtaking the unionist voters. What’s more, a lot of the unionist vote comes from older people, who are more likely to turn out; nationalists depend more on young people, who tend not to turn out. But with each succeeding election, more elderly unionist voters have died, more young nationalist voters have become older/more mature. Which means every passing year is bad for unionism and good for nationalism.
Maybe unionist politicians should keep that in mind when next they’re invited to discussions of a new Ireland. The longer they hang back, the more dominant nationalism will become.
And a final, pretty obvious thought: both unionist and nationalist camps will need to appeal to that neutral camp, in the event of a border poll. My guess is that right now, nationalists are closer to the neutrals than unionists are.
Right. Go off to a darkened room and lie quietly for half an hour.
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