US Congressman Brendan Boyle recently responded to an Irish Times article discussing the role economics plays in forming a sense of identity in Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide. Boyle remarked, “the argument for a United Ireland is a slam dunk based on the economic evidence”. He then disparagingly remarked that those who disagree with him are simply engaged in “rigid identity politics”.
But is it really a ‘slam dunk’ to suggest that Northern Ireland joining the Republic would improve lives across the island?
The answer is far more nuanced. According to a Kantar poll, two-thirds of the Republic of Ireland’s population support unification, and all major parties are officially in favour. Though this support fizzles out to merely 22 per cent, with 54 per cent opposed when asked if they would still support the idea if it led to higher taxes to subsidise the North – with Westminster providing around £10 billion annually to fill the budget deficit. Some Irish nationalists have argued the Republic could easily cover these costs, with unification only costing around 4 per cent of Ireland’s GDP, but this could still put many voters off in the event of a referendum, as 39 per cent of the population think they would be made financially worse off due to unification. There is also the national security threat from disgruntled unionist paramilitaries which could sway voters significantly, with 62 per cent saying it could jeopardise peace on the island. It seems that many in Ireland may be in favour of unification in theory, but not so much in practice.
Across the border, Northern Ireland would lose the NHS (known as Health and Social Care in NI) in favour of the Republic’s universal healthcare system, which is so inefficient half of the population use private health insurance compared to only 10 per cent in the UK, which could play a massive role in swinging undecided voters against unification.
Currently, the Northern Irish population is split when it comes to staying in the UK or not with the most recent poll in 2022 showing 47 per cent supported being in the UK while 35 per cent supported Irish Unity. Since 2020, every poll that has asked this question has shown at least a plurality of Northern Ireland’s population supporting the union. Despite Brexit, there has been no distinctly obvious narrowing in the margin between the two choices over the last decade.
There was a lot of press coverage of the 2021 census results which showed that for the first time, there were more Catholics than Protestants. But this is not as significant as it might first appear. It is worth considering that Catholics are generally less enthusiastic about their support of unification than Protestants are about unionism, less than a third of the population identify as ‘Irish only’, and those who don’t identify with either are more likely to support unionism, which explains the consistent support for unionism in the polls.
The Sinn Féin victory in the 2022 Stormont Elections and 2023 Local Elections also signalled that a United Ireland could be right around the corner. But again, this has often been misleadingly reported. This victory was not due to surging Irish nationalism but rather a fall in support for overtly unionist parties, in favour of non-sectarian alternatives. While unionist parties lost 4 seats, Sinn Féin did not gain any seats in 2022. The other major nationalist party, the SDLP lost 4 seats – meanwhile, the non-sectarian Alliance Party gained 9 seats.
In this year’s local elections, Sinn Féin did surge ahead to become the largest party in local government, but the combined vote share of all nationalist political parties remains roughly the same as it was 10 to 20 years ago. The unionist share of the vote has dropped massively amidst a non-sectarian surge mostly in unionist heartlands such as North Down, which elected an Alliance Party MP in 2019. Polling also suggests the majority of those who refuse to take a side in the nationalist-unionist dichotomy still support the union with Great Britain.
This undermines Congressman Boyle’s claim that rigid identity politics from unionists are preventing a United Ireland. Opposition to the idea clearly comes from a wide range of demographics for several understandable reasons.
So, is it really a ‘slam dunk’ to suggest that Northern Ireland joining the Republic would improve lives across the island? The answer is clearly no. This is too complicated and multifaceted an issue to reduce to such petty rhetoric filled with the finger-pointing of opportunistic or naïve politicians. ‘Identity politics’ is certainly the cause of much unnecessary tension and obfuscation, especially over the Northern Ireland Protocol or Windsor Framework, but it certainly does not exclusively explain the opposition to a United Ireland.
