What will Northern Ireland look like a decade from now?

Analysis: while the union remains well placed, talk of a united Ireland is no longer a matter for the birds as a realignment takes place

By Darren Litter, Queen's University Belfast.

The UK’s Chief Negotiator on Northern Ireland from 1997 to 2007, Jonathan Powell, recently wrote that the "whole point of the Good Friday Agreement was to make Northern Irish politics boring". While Stormontgate, decommissioning and the RHI scandal were anything but, it is true at least that the GFA gave rise to the belief that devolved Northern Ireland government was the only show in town.

However, the advent of Brexit - something the north voted 56% to 44% against - means talk of a united Ireland is no longer a matter for the birds. As well as unionism's loss of its majority in Stormont, the primary basis for this is that Northern Ireland is increasingly not defined by the 33% of the total population (2019 Westminster estimate) that vote for the DUP and Sinn Féin.

The ascendant demographic is those who identify as "Other"; the section of the population who do not identify along the traditional binary of "Nationalist" or "Unionist". The broad tendency of this cohort, as seen in the corresponding growth of the Alliance Party, is social liberalism, pro-Europeanism, and a commitment to power-sharing and democracy.

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From RTÉ Archives, RTÉ News report on the launch of the Alliance Party in 1970

58% of this population have indicated that the UK’s exit from the EU means that they would, or possibly could, now support the north joining with the south in a new all-island arrangement. This means that a majority of what will be the most constitutionally decisive demographic in Northern Ireland are actively contemplating the possibility that their value system could be better reflected by that of the Irish state. They see that Ireland is an enthusiastic, and consequential member of the EU, and that it is committed to constructing a state which accommodates religious beliefs but is in no way beholden to them.

By contrast, these otherwise small-u unionists see a potential future with the UK characterised by cuts to foreign aid, deviation from rules-based international order, and the deployment of Royal Navy ships against French fishermen. This is coupled in the Northern Ireland setting with the largest unionist party reportedly ousting Arlene Foster as leader over her abstention on an Assembly vote to ban gay conversion therapy (a move the UK government has itself just made as part of the Queen’s Speech). All of this, alongside indications of a better standard of living in the Republic of Ireland, contributes to the capacity for the Irish government to build a consensus among the peoples of Ireland that extends well beyond the realisation of a narrow historical quest.

From RTÉ One's Claire Byrne Live, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and DUP MP Gregory Campbell on what would a united Ireland look like if it came to pass

However, this is not to say that a united Ireland should be considered imminent or even inevitable. Support for Northern Ireland’s union with Great Britain remains strong, with 49% asserting that they would vote to remain part of the UK if a referendum on the constitutional issue was held today. It is important that there is a mindfulness, here, of a senior republican leader’s sobering comment to former Irish government advisor Martin Mansergh at the beginning of the peace process that "50 percent plus 1 [in favour of unity] equals civil war". This takes on an even heavier meaning when we consider that 90% of northern loyalists anticipate violence in the event of such a vote.

25 years from now is the conservative estimate of when most envisage reliable popular support for a united Ireland, but we cannot discount either that the DUP have it within their power to dampen this prospect. Though it seems unlikely for now, the more pragmatic DUP that Peter Robinson called for originally in 2011 could ameliorate Brexit’s negative effects on the attitudes of more moderate elements of northern nationalism.

These people were perfectly fine with Northern Ireland pre-Brexit (as reflected by the 21% of nationalists that have since changed to a more pro-unity position). They could be persuaded against constitutional change if the north was fully accommodating of Irish identity, especially in regard to the language – the Middle version of which fostered Scottish Gaelic, the speakers of whom today are predominantly Presbyterian - and focused on the advantages of the NI Protocol (in, for example, the fishing industry) rather than any minimal constitutional effects.

From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, RTÉ Europe Editor Tony Connelly on the Government's concern at the increasingly hostile tone of the UK government towards the Northern Ireland Protocol.

In many respects – and particularly if the EU and UK can make it more mutually workable – the NI Protocol could be the bulwark unionism needs to protect Northern Ireland against an extension of the crude economic argument that was at the heart of Brexit. The Brexiteer narrative was that the UK’s return on investment from its EU budget contribution was insufficient; and this is a charge that can also be levelled against NI. Despite enjoying the highest spending per head of any of the UK’s four regions, productivity in Northern Ireland was down 2% in 2018 and second only to the Yorkshire and Humber region in terms of poor performance.

The vision of a united Ireland equally relies on wider factors, the first being that the decision to hold a referendum is technically in the preserve of the Northern Ireland Secretary of State. The second is that if the northern population does indeed vote for unification, that will have to be mirrored in the southern vote that will need to take place.

This could well be more challenging than expected with only one in five southerners indicating that they would be prepared to pay an Irish equivalent of the German reunification tax. Of course, Ireland will additionally need to closely coordinate with the EU, both from the point of view of logistical support; but to ensure as well that there will be no repeat occurrences of damaging episodes like the January 2021 invocation of Article 16 over vaccine exports.

From RTÉ Radio 1's This Week, Deirdre Heenan from Ulster University on the election of Edwin Poots as the new leader of the DUP

In summary, a united Ireland is not around the corner, but there is a realigning taking place that could be hastened by a deepening of ‘Brexit Britain’ and a Democratic Unionist Party that governs only in the name of the 19% of the population that votes for it. This will be strengthened further if, as the approach to a Troubles amnesty suggests, the UK government is breaking from precedent and no longer committed to showing to the northern nationalist population that they regard their Irish counterpart as an intergovernmental partner.

But the union is far from finished and most see it as being around for another quarter century. In the meantime, there remains the possibility that the DUP will become willing to be led by the people of Northern Ireland as opposed to just trying to lead them.

Darren Litter is a PhD Candidate in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen's University Belfast.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

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