In yet another eventful couple of weeks in politics, what caught my eye the most wasn’t plans for a national broadband service, fanciful budget splurges or cringey speeches and interviews. It wasn’t mini-electoral pacts across dozens of seats in England and the ever-changing sands of political alignment over the Great Brexit Divide. Closer to home, it wasn’t even Lady Hermon stepping down, loyalist paramilitary threats to UUP candidates, a stage-managed Sinn Fein leadership contest or the tiny dramas of other electoral pacts and arrangements in a handful of bear pit seats here, including in my old home of North Belfast.
Naturally, it was something I read in the Slugger comments, nestled there like gold in trampled reeds around it, as such things frequently do. It related to an article on a subject which grabs the attention like no other: the possibility, or not, of a United Ireland, and in a wider sense, the difficulties of orchestrating a discussion on such an emotive and momentous issue that is as realistic and respectful to everyone on this island as much as possible. Of all the things I have read on this most emotive of topics, and since Brexit I have read a lot, this made more sense than anything else.
The suggestion, as humble was it was: Does anyone, who seriously wants this New Ireland project to work, think we can do this on two single, binary referendums North and South, within a few weeks or months of each other? Of course it can’t, and if such a project ever has a chance of getting off the newspaper and internet pages and onto the ground, then we need to be much smarter and creative about it. Put another way, look at how Brexit is tearing the UK and its politics apart and ask yourself: Is this what we want, when our question is infinitely more sensitive and life changing than that?
Quite simply: I do not see how else we can do this without two votes: one to officially kick start a real, meticulous and open discussion on this, based on Citizens Assembly outreach North and South, and a second to ratify the outcome and suggestions of that process in such a way that no one can challenge its legitimacy and the success of any New Ireland potentially resulting from it. And for anyone decrying this as more watering down of the consent principle under the Good Friday Agreement, it is anything but. The first vote would not be a meaningless, advisory farce: the question would be tightly-defined, kick-starting a time-limited and extensive outreach process North and South, across all lines and facets and issues of the debate, and officially supported and led equally by both the British and Irish governments. Crucially, at the end of this fixed period, say 5-7 years, it would result in a final vote where everyone going to the ballot box on that day knows exactly what they are voting for.
I have thought of this a lot, and I simply cannot see another way how this could be done that offers as comprehensive an opportunity as this. I also believe it has to happen at some point as Northern Ireland simply cannot continue to do the following two things: (i) exist in the current democratic vacuum and inaction, without significant and avoidable problems eventually occurring and (ii) fail to confront this issue at some point. This is especially the case if Northern Ireland is now reaching a point for which it was expressly designed to avoid: a possible majority in favour of leaving the UK and re-joining a unitary Irish state. I would prefer to confront that head on, with an official, democratically-mandated approach, than let it continue to paralyse every thing about this place completely.
Otherwise, nothing encapsulates the difficulties of starting such discussions on an unofficial, organic basis than a featured article last week by Eoghan Harris, questioning the legitimacy and motivations of the thousand or so public figures from Ireland north and south, named “Ireland’s Future”, who co-signed a letter to the Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. The point of this joint-letter, as with similar recent initiatives, was to begin a conversation “about our shared future on the island of Ireland” and to take the steps to start preparing for discussions on it as a matter of priority. The obvious point for Harris to make was what he saw as the total lack of any Unionist or Northern Protestant figures in those 1,000 names, and therefore, the letter’s exclusionary, “partisan”, and “delusional” assumptions.
I personally don’t agree with how Harris attacked the integrity and even the personal qualifications of the people on that list, or is aware of the religious or previous political affiliations of all of them, and certainly don’t want to go into the debated again which attracted most of the comments under that piece. But I do agree there is a basic point behind it, and that Harris isn’t the only one making it. Matthew O’Toole, from a Northern nationalist background himself, wrote a response with that same central point in the Irish Times. A New Ireland project, without any serious engagement and discussion addressing the critical issue of Unionist participation, will be such an unmitigated disaster that it will make Brexit seem like a spiffing success for the ages.
I have written on Slugger a few times to explain my interest in this conversation, but that interest is conditional on Unionist engagement being a fundamental part. If it doesn’t happen enough, I won’t be voting for it for reasons as idealist as they are practical. And I am sure I am not the only one from a nationalist background saying this.
But then, as many on Slugger have legitimately pointed out: how do realistically and practically you get Unionists involved and participating in something that is the anti-thesis of their political and cultural identity? Some Unionist commentators on these forums have even suggested that to do so is an assumption of interest bordering on insult; feelings from others (thankfully posted elsewhere than here) are so strong that civil disobedience in some form or scale is threatened as the natural and defensive response to a further betrayal of the Good Friday Agreement, which they saw (despite this possibility and mechanism being a central tenet) as maintaining the status quo for all time to come. It must be pointed out that not all Unionists or Northern Protestants would take anything like this approach, or feel they’d have to leave the place like Arlene Foster has said. Most, as suggested by Peter Robinson, would accept any such outcome, as hypothetical as it might be, as law-aboding democrats, and have a right and worth in the place in the same way as everyone else. However, we can’t deny that feelings on this run very high and deep indeed.
Even if intentions are sound, starting any sort of discussion or process involving Unionist engagement is going to be difficult, and old wounds and hurt can quickly surface, neatly and amusingly encapsulated in the mocked-up, circular nature of how this would likely play out in a recent blog piece by Andy Pollack. Very quickly, we get onto arguing about bombs in various places, the legitimacy or not of the Northern state, Wolfe Tone’s idealist visions and even repartioning of most of Down and Antrim should the Union Flag finally fall. For once, for the sanity of us all, we want to stay on higher ground as much as possible.
Then there’s all the dozens of questions about what this New Ireland would even look like and mean to all of us. Would a Northern assembly of some form remain? Would people still have British nationality rights and for how long? Could we legislate for orange parade rights and a national holiday on the 12th in the North, and what sort of economic plans and costs would realigning the North to the South entail? Would loyalist areas be a target for much-needed investment and funding, as recommended by Senator Mark Daly in his 2017 Unity Report recommendations? Further still, would we retain all existing public services including a universal health system, as chronically disappointing as it is over here, or would we be switching to HSE (where at least we might get appointments within a few weeks), the Garda Síochána and An Post in a few months after the vote?
Also, on a different scale but no less important for some, what anthem would play at Windsor Park games and would there even be games there in the first place? Nationalists are mostly broadly aligned on the basic aim of a united Ireland, but as we have seen with Brexit, once these issues are opened up to spell out what it actually would mean, would they still be as united around it?
All of this is just the Northern side of the debate. Another one must happen down South too, and we can’t just presume they’ll be happy to cut Ireland into a federal country with four provincial assemblies because it seems like a good idea for the lads there too, not to mention rejoining the Commonwealth or changing their much-loved flag and anthems as some are suggesting. Even if Northern Ireland’s budgetary contribution to things like Trident missiles, Iraq and Afghanistan, HS2 and the Royal Family are taken out of the famous £10billion shortfall currently paid by the British Government to keep the lights on in the place: if this affects incomes and taxes enough, are people from Cavan to Cork still going to be as enthusiastic for it?
There is so much to consider here, and as the Financial Times asked this week too: it’s such weighty stuff that once it becomes a real discussion, people are entitled to ask if Reunification, or this New Ireland, is really what they want after all.
This is exactly why we need a two-stage referendum process. As polls are starting to show following Brexit, a majority of people at least willing to express an interest to kick-start an official discussion process may already be there. That’s not the same as winning an actual vote, but all the more reason that we have a defined and official process rather than just assuming this is something Unionists are going to come round to sooner or later. There needs to be a democratic imperative for this, and it needs to have official status and bilateral government endorsement. If a majority of voters in Northern Ireland express such an interest for process of this, then refusing participation can’t be sustained for much longer.
It is for the second vote that the real interesting phase will happen. Luckily, the tradition of Citizens’ Assemblies for important and divisive referenda already exists in the Republic of Ireland, and what better way than for the topic of a United Ireland to fit into an enlarged and bilateral version of this?
Such an Assembly, covering a North and South focus, and endorsed by London as well as Dublin, and factored into the GFA arrangements, could have the official mandate, resources, powers, and crucially, time-focus, to reach out to Unionists in a way that has never been seriously attempted before. It could cover every conceivable aspect of what a New Ireland would entail, including voices from the civil professions, academia, politicians and grass roots levels. Rather than exploring divisions, it would seek to remove them: focusing on our shared history and diversity as something to be proud of rather than the source of division it usually is. I sometimes think of Slugger, and someone like Choyaa who has sometimes posted excellent and enriching articles on here about the marching traditions of Orangemen; things that despite coming from Northern Ireland, I had precisely no previous idea about. I learned a lot from those pieces and that perspective and would want it included and respected in any new Irish state: If people like this aren’t brought into that debate, then is there any point in having it in the first place?
Such a program might also open up doors in unexpected places, particularly on the many economic opportunities and removing the competitive handicap that having two separate economies has on such a small and resource-limited island. We might start talking about the things we used to have that were actually pretty good: go into the Folk and Transport museum in Cultra, and marvel with the All-Ireland train network we used to have, and how much the very geography and economic success of places like Omagh, Enniskillen, Donegal and Galway utterly change when a big massive division is put right in between them. We might see that a common Irishness and ability to even speak that language was a feature of even the most working-class areas of Belfast even after the turn of the last century. Do most Unionists know that, and if a part-British identity can be recognised too, is that not something to bring us together rather than divide us?
Crucially, the big fear of this project for Unionists, the role of Sinn Fein and submersion in its own particular vision of an all-Ireland state, would be neutered. This process will involve Sinn Fein and its supporters obviously, as it will include everyone. But it certainly won’t be driven by them: it would be managed by London and Dublin together, as equal stakeholders, with some degree of independence from the body politic, so that it is driven solely by the views and wishes of the people it seeks to empower. Many Unionists may be pleasantly surprised at how different this vision will how many people and commentators down South share their views on Sinn Fein, and how much they even have in common in other areas with other Irish parties. They might also be reassured that Unionist-sympathetic views do exist from people down South, including writers like Harris, Ruth Dudley-Harris and others. There was a time, not long ago, that the South was dominated by a real Anglo tradition and heritage, from everything from Dublin Castle, to the Guinness Family to William Butler Yeats and Roger Casement. Even people down South may forget that sometimes, but again, it’s something to bring us together and show us that we all went through the exact same history for centuries and millennia together and nothing partition could ever do can erase that entirely.
Suddenly, what started as wholesale opposition may slowly turn to the crazy idea that this idea may not actually be that bad after all. It may even be seen as a chance, perish the thought, to finally put our history behind us and focus on a new and exciting future, in a state where we all have a massive say and even helped create together. As one Unionist friend remarked to me a few weeks ago, just how bad would a united Irish state actually be? At least we might have higher salaries, and a say in Parliament that dwarfs what we currently have in London, where even at times of maximum leverage, we’re ultimately disposable and ignorable there, even if it cuts to the heart of the most loyal Unionists in the place. We may not reach out successfully to people like Jamie Bryson and Arlene Foster. But we might get hundreds, thousands of others, who also agree: in practice, this isn’t such a disastrous thing after all.
So thank you Slugger contributor for the idea. I appreciate we may be some time off this happening, but until that day comes, I haven’t heard a better one as to how it actually will and might even have a chance of passing in some style to boot.
And in times like this, why shouldn’t we be positive and open about it all?
On Saturday, November 23, 2019, at 1215 hours, a Memorial Mass will be held honoring the memory of Lieutenant Robert J. Ryan Jr., E-155, who made the supreme sacrifice on November 23, 2008. The mass will be celebrated at Sacred Heart Church located at 981 Castleton Avenue, Staten Island, NY. All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
PLAQUE DEDICATION
On Monday, December 9, 2019, at 1100 hours, a Plaque Dedication will be held honoring the memory of Captain John S. Moschella, E-26, who died on December 8, 2018. The dedication will take place in the quarters of Engine 26, 220 West 37th Street, New York, NY.
All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
PLAQUE DEDICATION
On Wednesday, December 11, 2019, at 1100 hours, a Plaque Dedication and Street Co-Naming Ceremony will be held honoring the memory of Firefighter Faizal Coto, E-245, who died on December 9, 2018. The dedication will take place in the quarters of Battalion 43, Engine 245 & Ladder 161, 2929 West 8th Street, Brooklyn, NY.
All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
PLAQUE DEDICATION
On Monday, December 16, 2019, at 1100 hours, a Plaque Dedication will be held honoring the memory of Firefighter Michael L. Duffy, L-174, who died on August 8, 2017. The dedication will take place in the quarters of Engine 310 & Ladder 174, 5105 Snyder Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.
All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
MEMORIAL MASS
On Wednesday, December 18, 2019, at 1030 hours, E-257, L-170 and B-58 will host a Memorial Mass commemorating the 21st Anniversary of the Vandalia Avenue Fire. The Mass will take place at St. Jude Church, located at 1677 Canarsie Road, Brooklyn, NY. The Mass will honor the memory of the following members who died in the line of duty: Lt. Joseph Cavalieri, FF James Bohan, and FF Christopher Bopp.
All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform.
CITIZEN THIN RED LINE WATCH EXCLUSIVELY FOR FIREFIGHTERS
Citizen Watch Group of America announces a very special watch designed to honor and recognize the commitment to duty by all Firefighters, The Thin Red Line.
This watch is available only to Firefighters and features a personalized engraving, a commemorative identification gold card, and is presented in a Thin Red Line collection box.
The watch is also offered at a very special price to again, show support and admiration to all who serve. To learn more, or to purchase, visit https://eliadam.com/collections/ufa-uniformed-firefighters-association, or call 201-880-4130 and specify that you are a member of the UFA, or use this link to ensure you receive the special firefighter discount.
From the desk of National Director and Immigration Chair Dan Dennehy
Please call the White House Switchboard (202) 456 1414 or (202) 456-1111
Call should take no more than 5 minutes including hold time Switchboard is answered by Volunteers so please be patient and courteous yet clear.
“I am calling to urge President Trump to instruct Homeland Security to issue a Stay of Deportation for Malachy McAllister, before his scheduled date of deportation, Friday, November 29, 2019.”
“In 2006, President Trump’s sister, Judge Maryanne Barry, implored the Attorney General to allow Malachy and his family to stay here.” There is currently bipartisan legislation in both houses of Congress to provide relief to the McAllister family.
“I join (our National President Judge James McKay, and our 40,000 members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, America’s largest Irish organization, and) fellow Irish Americans in standing up for Malachy McAllister, a law-abiding father, and grandfather of US-born children, a job creator and brave advocate for the Irish Peace Process. I ask that President Trump issue a stay of his 11/29 deportation”
In 1973, the UK government organised the country’s first referendum, on the subject of whether or not Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK. Now, as Brexit and its potential consequences make another border poll look like an increasing possibility, David Torrance looks back on the poll, its background, and its later constitutional significance.
Introduction
The first constitutional referendum in the history of the United Kingdom took place on 8 March 1973. It was held nearly four years after the beginning of ‘The Troubles’ – a sharp deterioration in the security and political situation in Northern Ireland.
What became known as the ‘border poll’ (although it was also called a ‘referendum’ or ‘plebiscite’, no one could quite agree on terminology) emerged as a means by which to ‘take the border out of politics’, or so it was hoped. In discussions with the Government of Northern Ireland (NIG) on 22 March 1972, the UK government proposed transferring responsibility for law and order from Belfast to London, phasing out internment, and periodic plebiscites.
The last two were, in principle, acceptable to the NIG, but an erosion of its ‘transferred’ powers under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was not. The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (Brian Faulkner) and his Cabinet later resigned, and on 30 March the Parliament of Northern Ireland – known as ‘Stormont’ – was prorogued and Direct Rule from Westminster introduced for the first time since 1921.
‘We… propose in due course to invite Parliament to provide for a system of regular plebiscites in Northern Ireland about the Border, the first to be held as soon as practicable in the near future and others at intervals of a substantial period of years thereafter.’
In effect, Heath was proposing to transfer the principle of ‘consent’ from the prorogued Parliament of Northern Ireland (enshrined in the Ireland Act 1949) to its people, ‘the Border’ representing a proxy for a much broader constitutional question.
The Prime Minister hoped periodic plebiscites, ‘while leaving open the possibility of a change in the status of the Province if the majority so wish’, would provide ‘a greater measure of stability in the political life of Northern Ireland’. The Labour leader Harold Wilson expressed ‘doubt’ on this point, believing it could ‘be extremely dangerous to stir up passion on all sides’.
A Green Paper (The Future of Northern Ireland) published by the new Northern Ireland Office (NIO) followed in October 1972, paragraph 82 stating that the ‘wishes of the people of Northern Ireland on their relationship to the United Kingdom and to the Republic will be ascertained by a plebiscite early in the New Year’.
As this wording suggested, the UK government intended the referendum to take place in January 1973, before local government elections and publication of a widely-anticipated White Paper on the future governance of Northern Ireland. The referendum proposal – and subsequent legislation – proved contentious.
Debate in Parliament
The Northern Ireland (Border Poll) Bill received its second reading in the Commons on 21 November 1972. The Bill provided that the referendum would be conducted and funded as if it were a UK general election, and on the franchise used for Stormont elections. The Schedule also set out two questions, next to one of which voters would be invited to place a cross:
‘Do you want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom?’
and
‘Do you want Northern Ireland to be joined with the Republic of Ireland outside the United Kingdom?’
William Whitelaw, appointed by Heath as the first Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, explained that the Government’s aim ‘was to take the border out of the day-to-day political scene’:
‘There can be no change in the constitutional position of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom unless by the will of the majority. But equally, if the majority of the people in Northern Ireland were to opt for a united Ireland, no British Government would stand in the way.’
Labour was not against a referendum in principle but wanted the White Paper published before it took place. Whitelaw, however, left ‘open the question whether publication of that White Paper or the border poll will come first’.
Others dwelled on broader ramifications. The then Labour MP David Owen noted that referendums had been ‘resisted’ on membership of the Common Market and constitutional changes in Scotland and Wales but was now being proposed for ‘one particular part of the United Kingdom—Northern Ireland’:
‘It is not as if anybody were arguing that we are in any doubt about the result. We know the result. Therefore, we are not arguing for a plebiscite or a referendum for clarity; we are arguing for it for public relations, for demonstration purposes. This is profoundly dangerous.’
Kevin McNamara, a Labour MP and future Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary (1987–94), believed the proposed border poll possessed even greater significance:
‘We are introducing into our constitutional life the idea of a plebiscite or referendum whereby a part of the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are to say of themselves and by themselves, without reference to the remainder of the population whether they should remain within the United Kingdom, irrespective of whether the rest of the United Kingdom wishes them to be in it.’
Debating Irish unity at the Oxford Union, meanwhile, Taoiseach Jack Lynch said such a plebiscite, ‘conducted on the basis of questions as stark as those which are proposed, can contribute nothing, is completely predictable, and can only widen the rift between the two communities’. At the same time, Lynch considered the recent Green Paper both ‘realistic and forward looking’.
The Northern Ireland (Border Poll) Act 1972 provided that the referendum date and regulations be fixed by Order, a form of secondary legislation subject to the negative resolution procedure. This was laid before parliament on 14 December and set the polling date as 8 March 1973, two months later than originally planned but, according to David Howell, Minister of State at the NIO, the ‘earliest practicable date’ given a new electoral register would come into force on 16 February.
MPs debated the Order on 23 January 1973. Howell made it clear the referendum would be conducted under ‘Westminster rules’, albeit with certain deviations. While voting would take place in Northern Ireland’s (then) 12 constituencies, ballots would be counted in one place and a result declared for Northern Ireland as a whole. Polling was to take place between 8am and 8pm (rather than 7am–10pm), to ease recruitment of polling staff and enable most electors to ‘vote in daylight’. All voters – provided they were on the NI register and could provide a UK address – could vote by post (including non-convicted detainees and internees) and, finally, the Secretary of State was authorised to appoint MPs from both Westminster and Stormont as observers.
Merlyn Rees, the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, restated Labour’s desire for the White Paper to ‘precede’ the legislation, while the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Gerry Fitt warned that the referendum would cause ‘mischief and great danger in Northern Ireland’. He added: ‘I know that many moderate people in Northern Ireland will have to boycott it and advise those whom they represent to do the same, because we already know the result.’
Fitt’s SDLP, the Nationalist Party and the Republican Labour Party had opposed a referendum from the outset, arguing that the whole of Ireland ought to decide and thus urged their supporters not to vote (Sinn Féin was banned until 1974). The Ulster and Democratic Unionist Parties opposed plebiscites but supported a referendum on this occasion, while the Alliance and the Northern Ireland Labour Party (like the GB Labour Party) wanted the plebiscite linked to specific proposals.
As the authors of a government-commissioned research project on the referendum later observed, legislation had arranged ‘for the views of the people to be made known’, but whether ‘they would be willing to do so was another matter’.
The referendum campaign
The NIO launched an extensive publicity campaign once the Northern Ireland (Border Poll) Order was made on 24 January 1973, with adverts placed in both Northern Irish and mainland newspapers (including the Scotsman and Glasgow Herald).
Campaigning, however, was lacklustre. The questions were – in the retrospective view of political scientists R. J. Lawrence and Sydney Elliott – ‘so lacking in ambiguity, as to leave little room for rhetoric and propaganda’. ‘Pro-union and anti-partition leaders knew that the prospect of changing each others’ attitudes was remote’, they added in a 1975 Command Paper, ‘and that the vast majority of voters had already made up their minds.’
Only in the week before polling did the referendum seem to ‘occupy the centre of public attention’, with pro-union parties fearing a low turnout ‘might result in less than 50% of the total electorate voting for the link with Britain’, an important psychological – if not statutory – threshold for Unionists.
The border poll took place on 8 March 1973 in ‘fine weather’. A large force of soldiers and police were in place at 388 polling stations, carrying out security checks as unobtrusively as possible. Nevertheless, there were several violent incidents throughout the day, including eleven explosions. The Metropolitan Police were also on heightened alert lest London be targeted.
After polls closed at 8pm, 1,700 ballot boxes were collected by the security forces and delivered to the heavily-guarded counting centre at Belfast’s Floral Hall, where the last box arrived at 3.30am. It was, judged Lawrence and Elliott, ‘the largest single operation of its kind in British electoral history’ with the ‘great weight of… evidence’ indicating ‘that it was generally fair and efficient’.
The referendum result
Out of 1,030,084 registered voters there was a turnout of 58.6%, 98.9% (or 591,820) of whom voted for Northern Ireland to ‘remain’ part of the UK, and 1.1% (6,423) voting for it ‘to be joined with’ the Republic of Ireland. Almost 6,000 votes (1%) were rejected as invalid, while 12.5% of those voting had done so by post.
The BBC reported that only 1% of Catholics had taken part, while Brian Faulkner claimed (first in a letter to The Times and subsequently in his memoirs) that ‘some 20 to 25 per cent of the Catholic community’, or ‘in excess of 71,000 Catholics’, had voted ‘for the British link in spite of the boycott campaign’.
Lawrence and Elliott were more judicious. ‘Several guesses and estimates were made about the extent of deliberate abstention, but this cannot be measured,’ they wrote in 1975. ‘We record the facts that pro-unionists were pleased with their turnout and that anti-partitionists were equally pleased with their boycott.’
The 1973 border poll has received surprisingly scant attention from historians and political scientists, some accounts of the period ignoring it completely. Nevertheless, the referendum was – as the Labour MP Kevin McNamara judged in 1972 – constitutionally significant in that it established a precedent for voters in one part ofthe UK to express the desire to secede. For this reason, it was very much in the mind of those planning the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, a plebiscite which presented a clear choice to voters following agreement between the Scottish and UK governments.
As Professor James Mitchell has observed, the 1973 referendum ‘suggested that sovereignty rested with the people of Northern Ireland and not Parliament at Westminster’, a suggestion arguably reinforced with respect to Scotland more than 40 years later.
J. Lawrence and S. Elliott (1975), The Northern Ireland Border Poll 1973 (Cmnd 5875), London: HMSO.
B. Faulkner (1978), Memoirs of a Statesman, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
This post relates to the topic of a new Unit project, the Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland, led by Dr Alan Renwick, which will examine how any future referendum on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland (often known as a ‘border poll’) would best be designed and conducted (see here for a blogpost introducing the project). The project has already produced a background paper by Unit Honorary Senior Research Associate and former civil servant Alan Whysall, who has also written for the blog on the subject (see here and here).
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About the author
David Torrance is a Senior Library Clerk at the House of Commons Library, specialising in devolution, monarchy and the constitution.
