The gap between support for Irish unity and Northern Ireland staying in the UK has narrowed in the past year.
A new LucidTalk poll for the Belfast Telegraph shows that 48% of voters would opt to maintain the Union while 41% would back a united Ireland if a referendum was held this week.
In last year’s Westminster election, the total unionist vote was just over 43% while the nationalist vote was slightly over 40%.
In our survey last year, there was a 10-point gap between the two sides: 49% supported staying in the UK, while 39% wanted Irish unity.
Now 10% of people say they’re unsure how they’d vote, while 1% would abstain or spoil their ballot.
While almost nine in 10 nationalists (86%) want a border poll within the next decade, three-quarters (74%) of unionists say one should never be called.
The Good Friday Agreement states a border poll should be called by the incumbent Northern Ireland Secretary when they believe there is evidence that public opinion here has shifted in favour of change.
However, successive UK governments have refused to specify publicly what criteria will be applied when measuring public sentiment on the issue.
The DUP has said Northern Ireland does not need a “divisive” border poll, although Sinn Fein has urged the new Dublin government to begin planning for a referendum.
Support for Irish unity is strongest with the younger generation.
Among voters under 35, 50% want a united Ireland, with 44% choosing the Union.
The split is 49% to 37% among 35-44 year-olds in favour of Irish unity.
By comparison, the middle-aged and retired want to maintain the constitutional status quo.
The divide is 55% to 36% in favour of the Union versus a united Ireland among 45-54 year-olds, and 51% to 34% among those aged over 55.
In terms of party breakdown, 31% of Alliance voters favour Irish unity, with 26% wanting Northern Ireland to stay in the UK. Most (43%), however, are undecided.
Eight in 10 SDLP voters (79%) would vote for a united Ireland, with the rest evenly split into the undecided (11%) and pro-Union camps (10%).
While men divide 54% to 41% in favour of the Union, it’s the opposite with women: 44% of them back Irish unity with 39% preferring to keep the status quo.
But three times as many women (15%) are unsure of how they’d vote than men (5%). There are more Catholic unionists (6%) than Protestant united Ireland supporters (4%).
Those of no religion are more likely to support Irish unity (40%) while a third want to remain within the UK and a quarter are unsure which is best
If a border poll resulted in a united Ireland, three-quarters (76%) of DUP voters say they’d find it impossible to accept, while one in six (15%) would be unhappy but could live with it.
Nearly half of UUP voters (49%) say they’d find such a result impossible to accept, while almost a third (31%) would be unhappy but would live with it, and one in 10 would happily accept the electorate’s verdict.
Unionists are much more likely than nationalists to be driven purely by their feelings of national identity and to refuse to consider social and economic factors when voting in a border poll.
Almost half (47%) insist they feel so strongly about being British that they won’t consider any other issue when it comes to a referendum on our constitutional future.
Some 29% of nationalists say they will vote for Irish unity because it’s a nationality issue for them and they won’t take any other factors into account in a border poll
The economy was an issue for 51% of nationalists and 17% of unionists, while the health service and welfare system was important to 46% of nationalists and 22% of unionists in a referendum.
Just one in five unionists (21%) say their vote would be influenced by the treatment they’d receive as a minority in the new state. Some 45% of people here want a border poll held in 10 years and 55% want one in 20 years.
Just under half of Alliance voters (45%) would like a referendum in the next decade, while 70% want one within two decades.
Some 53% of all voters, and 60% of those under-35, aspire to Irish unity within the next 20 years.
Polling was carried out online from February 14 to 17 using the established LucidTalk Northern Ireland online opinion panel of 16,747 members, which is balanced to be demographically representative.
In total, 3,001 full responses were received, which were authenticated, audited, weighted and modelled into a 1,051 NI-representative response data-set used for the final results.
Weighting was carried out by age, gender, socio-economic group, previous voting patterns, constituency, constitutional position, political-party support, and religious affiliation.
All results are accurate in terms of being NI-representative to within an error of +/-2.3% at 95% confidence.
LucidTalk is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its regulations. LucidTalk is the only NI and Ireland based polling and market research company that is a member of the council
by WorldwidePolitico
12 comments
That’s a nice breakdown of the poll. The under 35s figures are quite surprising, 50-44 in favour of UI. Younger people tend to be more idealistic than older people, I wonder if they’ll still hold those views when they are in the 35-55 bracket twenty years from now.
We need to know what a United Ireland would actually look like. Pensions, NHS, civil service etc..
Not providing any framework on that makes it impossible to know what we would be voting for, and takes the prospect of Unification off the table.
And that’d before ANY public debate on a level playing field as opposed to having Esmond Birnie on the radio talking to Nolan.
no costings and fuck all real plans on both sides and this will be brexit 2.0. Actually have a defence force, make healthcare free and house people that’s no brainer stuff. The brass tacks will be stuff like the civil service and car insurance.
Rule Britannia 🇬🇧
Until they work out the details of what a united Ireland will look like and how that effects us.
Pensions, taxes, switch to euro, car registrations, mot to nct, nhs, schools all the important day to day stuff need to be nailed now before any vote.
We ain’t having another brexit type vote where people have to make a decision based on speculation and the lies from politicans.
Ask people if they want a UI and they would say yes. Ask them to lose many of the things we have as part of the union for a UI and people will say no.
The pro UI crowd don’t want to talk about details as that would require a plan and for thought so they are running on a grass is greener mindset. Beware of this. This was the thinking behind Brexit.
Stoop Down Low Party showing how much of their base isn’t consistent with their parties beliefs. I find it strange that 10% of their membership is pro union.
I think there are a few things outside of demographics that are driving it that could tip the balance in the next few years
– ROI rejecting SF in the election (compared to predictions) puts the fear of many fence sitters to one side and makes unification more palatable
– continued death spiral of UK under both Torys and Labour with the new government seemingly just being caretakers of the decline rather than the change everyone hoped for, health system still closing services and unable to even provide adequate emergency services available in developing countries
– meanwhile despite housing costs and incompetent politicians ROI is relatively prospering and even investing here in ways that they are not obligated to
– secularisation of nominal protestants in NI and secularisation of catholics in the South making the religious divide and rome rule basically irrelevant
– internationalisation from the Internet making the mainstream British and Irish culture propagation from old forms of national media less effective
– basically the Unionist arguments other than national defence and tradition are all neutralised, we currently have more trade barriers with England than Europe
– troubles combatants are retiring/dying out and younger colleagues are not tarnished with the stigma of their actions
– dissidents from both sides care more about drug territory and hating migrants than eachother
I’m a unionist, always have been, but from a practical sense it’s getting harder and harder to justify being in the union. If the republic really wants NI it needs to set out a plan, a real credible plan for unification. There’s an enormous amount of public sector employees in NI and they’re not going to go happily if their jobs aren’t guaranteed on the other side.
Then you have the issue of the loyalist population which is sizeable, how are they integrated into a new Ireland, the only way I can see is showing them how they’ve been f*ucked over by the Westminster for the last 30 years and that they’ll be better off in the republic, that won’t be easy.
“If held this week”? And its already at 41%. Rip to a supposedly precious union.
>If a border poll resulted in a united Ireland, three-quarters (76%) of DUP voters say they’d find it impossible to accept, while one in six (15%) would be unhappy but could live with it.
>Nearly half of UUP voters (49%) say they’d find such a result impossible to accept, while almost a third (31%) would be unhappy but would live with it, and one in 10 would happily accept the electorate’s verdict.
Unionism never did get on well with democracy.
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