Opinion

Referendum requiring super majority would be acceptable to vast majority

We constantly hear from Brexiteers about politicians betraying the will of the people and demands that they ‘get on with it’, especially as the 29th March looms on the horizon. Yet the divisions in the UK parliament reflect those in the wider society. The percentages tell it all. 52 per cent to 48 per cent to leave is not exactly a clear-cut victory and, of course, Remainers won in Scotland and Northern Ireland by bigger majorities (62 per cent and 56 per cent respectively). 

Again, almost 13m people didn’t vote at all. In fact, if you include these non-voters, 17.4m or only 37 per cent of an electorate of 46.5m voted to leave. It is interesting to compare this statistic with the referendum on a Scottish Parliament back in 1979. 52 per cent vote for it and 48 per cent against, but it was defeated because parliament had set the minimum threshold of 40 per cent of the total electorate before such a significant change could take place.

In many countries and institutions a super majority is required for any important change. Mergers in business require 75 per cent support of shareholders to go through. A two-thirds majority in the papal conclave is required to elect a new pope. Amendments to the American constitution require a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress and three quarters of the state legislatures. The Montenegrin independence referendum in 2006 required a 55% threshold (which it narrowly achieved). 

Super majorities make sense where a major change in the polity is being contemplated. Democracy is literally ‘people rule’, so it is perfectly logical in such situations to ensure that ‘the people’ are as close to being unanimous as is practically possible. Unionists in Northern Ireland tend to equate democracy with what a simple majority wants because it enabled them to rule the province as effectively a one-party state for half a century.

Brexiteers maintain that it is an insult to the people to seek a second referendum because it implies that they arrived at the ‘wrong’ decision in 2016. But there is nothing sacred or permanent about democracy. Three years after the vote, we have the benefit of new information and a greater understanding of the complexities of the issue.


It is therefore not too late to hold another people’s vote and to require a super majority to reverse the original leave decision.

Brexiteers could not convincingly reject a referendum on these terms – are they really suggesting that they are not confident of obtaining more than 40 per cent of the vote second time around? 

As for us Remainers, we would be grateful for a second bite of the cherry, redouble our efforts to persuade sceptics of the benefits of EU membership and take hope from the fact that 67 per cent voted to stay in the 1975 EU referendum. A second referendum in the UK with a super majority required to reverse the first one would surely be acceptable to the vast majority both inside and outside parliament and would restore some stability to a system which is currently in chaos – or, as Sean O’Casey wrote, “a terrible state o’ chassis”.

BRIAN McCLINTON


Lisburn, Co Antrim

Both parties will be losers in SDLP/FF merger

The proposed merger between the SDLP and Fianna Fáil is not a full on merger but more a policy partnership that has been mooted many times in recent years. But you’ve got to ask oneself what are the benefits for such a merger? In any other similar scenario there has to be a win situation for both parties. Obviously, they must think the move is going to play well for them in the polls or they wouldn’t do it. I believe at this time, both parties will be losers. On the Fianna Fáil side, for some, there is a long-held ideological view that the party should have a northern dimension culminating in an all-island presence. For others, it’s a convenient way to topple Sinn Féin. In the period between the set-up of Fianna Fáil in 1926 and the 1970s, Fianna Fáil, with their republican rhetoric, soldiers of destiny claim, voiced annually at their Ard Fheis showed little interest in involving themselves in the north’s politics. Straddling both politics on the island will be extremely difficult for Fianna Fáil, because politics in both places is so currently different. Have they entrenched partition in Ireland?

The SDLP are haemorrhaging. Fighting for peace took its toll on them and they have long been supplanted by Sinn Féin as the voice of northern nationalism. 

The political landscape in the north has been transformed in recent years and there is growing support for a united Ireland. Thinking the unthinkable, it will come about.


Politics are of the people and for the people and not to serve the interests of those who need propped up, or to be used as a sticking plaster. New political structures and governance will be transparent and put to the people to decide in a new all-Ireland dimension.

JAMES G BARRY


Dublin 6W

Rewriting history

Fionnuala O Connor recently informed Irish News readers that British troops were sent over here as “peacekeepers” in 1969.  Would she say that to the family of Majella O’Hare or to the relatives of Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy massacre victims?  

Bad enough to see this sort of statement being printed in a quality newspaper but what’s worse is to see it in school text books.

According to the 26-county junior certificate history school book the British army were sent across the Irish Sea “to protect nationalists”.

This is a real life example of what George Orwell was writing about in his book Nineteen Eighty Four.

“If all others agreed with the love the party imposed - if all records told the same tale - then the lie passed into history and became truth”.

MICHAEL O'FLYNN


Cork City

FG should run in north

In the north-west the border has impeded economic and social development for nearly a century. Voting 1 for Mark Durkan in May is the most practical way I can support the people of Derry and Donegal to achieve their potential. Brexit and the promise of Taoiseach Varadkar never again to leave  the Irish in the north behind, should nudge Fine Gael to contest Stormont and council elections to prepare negotiations for a new Ireland which is coming down the tracks quickly. I await the FG National Council decisions to live up to the ‘United Ireland Party’ subrogation of FG and ratify candidates to run in the north. 

BILL TORMEY


Dublin 11  

Understanding unionist psyche

According to Alex Kane (March 1) Patrick Kielty is not a unionist so he doesn’t understand the unionist psyche.

Basically all you need to know is that they do not want to be part of a united Ireland in any shape or form. This is disguised and dressed up as the ‘constitutional question’.

Alex has a habit of saying “Let’s be honest’. Maybe one day he’ll give us an honest analysis of the ‘constitutional question’.

MALACHY SCOTT


Belfast BT15

Expression of thanks

On January 25th and February 23rd a street collection was held on behalf of Cancer Focus NI at Kingspan Stadium in advance of the matches, £251.15 and £464 was raised respectively. We would like to express our thanks to all who donated.

FRANCIS WOODS,


DERMOT REDMOND


Belfast