Opinion

Denis Bradley: Irish people will make up their minds on unity when debate is better focused

Denis Bradley

Denis Bradley

Denis Bradley is a columnist for The Irish News and former vice-chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.

Road signs for Belfast, Newry, Dublin and Dundalk
Road signs for Belfast, Newry, Dublin and Dundalk Road signs for Belfast, Newry, Dublin and Dundalk

So, they won’t pay or change their flag for a new Ireland.

Don’t believe everything you read. Don’t be impressed by every opinion poll. And particularly don’t be fooled into thinking that the people of the south of Ireland are positive about a united Ireland but only if they don’t have to pay any higher taxes or make any changes to their flags, anthems, and constitutions.

Those recently published polls come from a very narrow cohort of society and are embellished by commentators who are not the best judges of the Irish people. Opinion polls can be helpful, but they cannot measure the motivation, the heart desires, nor the malleability of the Irish people.

Don’t be taken in, either, by the personal stories of northerners who tell of the hostility and partitionist mentality they encountered in their journeys south. Not that the stories are untrue but rather be assured that such attitudes are to be found among a section of people in every country, especially the countries who have yet to fully resolve their identity and constitutional issues. Those attitudes are accentuated in a country that is more accustomed to poverty and emigration than to its present wealth. And out of that new wealth comes the growth of a new middle class who need time to rediscover or find their values.

Away from the world of the media and the pollsters, the truth is that the people of the south don’t yet know how to react to the unity debate. And how could they? Northerners themselves don’t know the best way to advance the debate. When the political establishments, north and south, are at loggerheads about the way forward, why expect the ordinary man and woman to have a fixed view.

Some of the political parties and their supporters want to tread softly, allowing unionism time and space to cogitate and eventually succumb to the inevitability of change. Others think to drive it forward more aggressively, wanting an early border poll, to ensure the debate and the vote get a proper outing and presumably assuming that even if the initial vote is lost, enhancing a better voting prospect in the future.

The argument is made that the nationalist population will give anything, within reason, to unionist demands in their desire to bring an end to the constitutional dispute. There is truth in that and the slight exaggeration detectable within that statement is put there to counteract the negative argument that the south has no interest in unity. The ‘within reason’ is important to mark that it would be wrong to allow unionism a blank cheque. The settlement that will ultimately be reached and the compromises agreed should have equality and respect at their core. But nationalism will have to concede the most because they are the ones who are doing the wooing and because they will be the majority in the new Ireland and will have to set the tone of generosity and reconciliation.

The Irish people will wait until the parameters of the debate are more defined. Like those who live in the north they will become frustrated and impatient with the continuing negativity of unionism, particularly as it is revealed that there are many in that community who are having this debate in the privacy of their homes but won’t put their heads above the parapet in public.

But, as happened during all the years of the troubles, there will be a third ear listening in as things develop. The publication of the census followed by the elections in May will give that third ear plenty to absorb. But the settled mind of the Irish people will only become clear when the vision of a new Ireland is better focused, and the compromises being asked more concrete. Then, you can be assured, there will be enough generosity to carry the deal across the line.