Academics Discussing Border Polls

Mike Burke with a detailed look at the academic focus on a possible border poll.

“There's a whole lot of … academic work going on.” - Bertie Ahern, 1 February 2021.

Academics are paying increasing attention to the question of concurrent border polls in the north and south of Ireland. Republicans and nationalists would be well-advised to follow these constitutional discussions. Some scholars who claim to be supporting the Good Friday Agreement are eroding it; and some who see a pressing need to prepare for a border poll are devising constitutional schemes that may reduce the likelihood of a vote ever being held.

“Border polls” is not the favourite scholarly term. Authors prefer to speak of referendums, not polls, and to describe them as votes on unification or reunification, rather than as decisions on the border (Murray & O’Donoghue, 2019; Working Group, 2020). They avoid the use of “border polls” to emphasize that the constitutional debate is not just about erasing or confirming a sovereign boundary. It’s a much broader matter. It is, they rightly insist, also about discussing the structures of a new Ireland in the event of unity; and about formulating processes to advance smoothly from the old to the new.

I use both kinds of language, although I prefer “border polls.” I favour that term because it’s part of popular discourse, employed by those who support and oppose constitutional change. And I’m a little hesitant to adopt fully the alternative terms because I have grave reservations about the direction in which some of the broader academic deliberation is moving.

There are many ongoing constitutional initiatives involving scholars from Ireland, the UK, Europe and North America. The Institute for British-Irish Studies of University College Dublin is in the middle of a three-year research project on “Constitutional Futures after Brexit” (Gillespie, 2019). Ulster University’s Transitional Justice Institute is actively involved in examining alternative constitutional scenarios (TJI, 2020). Queen’s Policy Engagement highlights contemporary thinking and research in a number of policy areas touching on constitutional issues in the north and beyond (QPOL, no date (n.d.)). The Constitution Unit at University College London regularly features material on constitutional change and institutional reform in Ireland and elsewhere (Doyle, 2020). The International Association of Constitutional Law hosts an informative blog on “Constitutional Dimensions of Irish Unification” (Daly, 2020).

These scholarly interventions are, of course, occurring alongside the flurry of civil-society and local conversations about Ireland’s constitutional future. And there are many party-political and some governmental proposals on the field. I’m addressing the academic discussions because they seem to have escaped popular notice and public scrutiny.

I focus primarily on the Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland, whose project is facilitated by UCL’s Constitution Unit. The Working Group has just produced a substantial (240-page) Interim Report, and its members are active participants in many academic forums examining Ireland’s possible constitutional paths (Working Group, 2020).[1]

I examine four related issues: the overall political-interpretive frame that is being established for constitutional discussion; the partial and misleading view of the GFA’s provisions on the right of self-determination; the move away from the Agreement’s notion of a binary-choice border poll; and the confusion surrounding consensual and majoritarian rules of decision-making.

Discussions or Concessions?

Much of the academic work sets a one-sided political frame that gives unionists and nationalists distinctly unequal roles in any negotiation of Ireland’s constitutional future. The expectations are that unionists will come to the table to make demands, nationalists to make concessions. A variant of this set of expectations is that nationalists must make significant compromises to persuade unionists even to participate in the discussion. Advocates of Irish unity need to resist this kind of frame.

The Working Group examines five possible “referendum configurations” that lay out different designs for how to conduct a border poll and address attendant constitutional issues. It finds that three configurations are worthy of further consideration. Each of the three contains design features meant to enhance popular engagement in the process of constitutional change. Two of them are constructed specifically to encourage unionist participation (Working Group, 2020, paras. 9.57 & 10.22). The Working Group is not alone in this laudable aim. Many others involved in the constitutional conversation wish to see full and complete participation by diverse communities. But the Working Group’s favoured configurations come at a potentially high price for nationalists and republicans. As I explain below in the sections on binary choice and decision rules, the configurations give the north extra and inappropriate vetoes over constitutional change that may indefinitely delay progress towards a united Ireland.

The Working Group also delineates additional ways in which unionist fears and concerns—about identity, citizenship and culture—could be met in a newly-united Ireland. These other ways include more vetoes for the north and extensive changes to the Irish constitution (Working Group, 2020, chaps. 7 & 9). Many academics and researchers contributing to the reunification debate similarly emphasize the constitutional imperative of nationalism accommodating unionism. Humphreys (2018) places much of the weight of compromise on nationalists. Murray and O’Donoghue (2019) privilege unionism by ensuring a unionist-dominated agenda for their proposed all-Ireland Constitutional Convention. Gillespie (2019) is especially interested in sketching constitutional outcomes that favour unionism, some of them clearly violating the GFA. Dickson (2020) explores the assurances that unionists might seek in order to reduce their fears of living in a united Ireland. Kenny (2020), in a contribution ostensibly about nationalist concerns, spends considerable time discussing the trade-offs that nationalists must make to assuage unionist anxieties. Gormley-Heenan (2020) interprets nationalism’s boycott of the 1973 border poll through a unionist lens, as a means of highlighting contemporary unionist concerns about a GFA-mandated constitutional referendum. Doyle, Kenny and McCrudden (2021) consider amendments of the Irish constitution that would make a unified Ireland more appealing to citizens from the Ulster Scots and Ulster British traditions. Whysall (2021a & 2021b) seems disproportionately attentive to unionist unease, presents a decidedly negative view of Irish unity, and proposes a programme for reviving the Agreement, except for its sections on constitutional change.[2]

The need for nationalism to appease unionism is a constant refrain of constitutional politics in the north. Gail Walker, editor at large of the Belfast Telegraph, recently encapsulated this view in her discussion of unionist disquiet over the northern Protocol: nationalism should demonstrate vision by acknowledging and offering to resolve unionist fears. She seems not to have considered that nationalists can demonstrate vision in other ways too (Walker, 2021).

Nationalists and republicans have already indicated that they will respond generously to unionist concerns by offering reasonable accommodation in a new constitutional dispensation. They understand the importance of moving forward with as much social and political agreement as possible. But they also realize the often questionable invocation of unionist fears. Scaremongering unionist politicians and commentators can exploit these fears as a cheap and expedient means of mobilizing communal support for their partisan campaigns. We’ve had more than enough of this kind of politicking in the last few weeks, with the wild claims and not-so-subtle threats of unrest emanating from leadership levels of political unionism, both past and present. It seems that every political controversy, every hint of change, offers additional examples of this kind of debased politics. Such antics, with their predictable results, injure the prospect of productive constitutional engagement.

Consolidating Irish unity will require considerably more than simply acquiescing to unionist demands. Nationalists and republicans are, justifiably, thinking broadly about what kind of a united Ireland they wish to construct. Diverse social voices call out for accommodation, including the poor, the sick, the homeless and inadequately housed, immigrants and refugees, racialized minorities, women, workers, youth and the elderly. Real challenges lie ahead with so many issues in play and so many groups in need of additional support.

The Right of Self-Determination

Scholarly discussions of concurrent border polls often begin, as the Working Group does, by citing the GFA’s conception of self-determination:

it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish, accepting that this right must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland (Working Group, 2020, para. 3, my emphasis)

But few academic accounts explore in sufficient detail the material limits on the exercise of the right of self-determination. The Working Group is no exception.

This GFA provision, by itself, is a notably incomplete depiction of what self-determination actually means in the Agreement and related legislation. The people of the island of Ireland cannot exercise their right “alone” or “without external impediment.” Self-determination must always be understood in the context of potential but robust British and Irish limitations on that right. The GFA gives the Secretary of State, the British government and Parliament all but unfettered authority to stifle the exercise of the right of self-determination. It also gives the Irish government and Oireachtas an equivalent capacity to become obstacles to the realization of Irish unity. The right of self-determination, as defined by the Agreement, exists at the sufferance of London and Dublin.

The Secretary of State’s power over calling a border poll is key to understanding the restrictions on self-determination. A border poll is the only method of assessing northern consent to self-determination; and a united Ireland cannot be achieved without that consent. The Secretary of State has a mandatory legal duty to direct the holding of a poll:

if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland” (GFA, Annex A, Schedule 1, para. 2).[3]

The centrality of the Secretary of State’s authority here cannot be emphasized enough: if the Secretary of State does not call a border poll, there can be no Irish unity under the terms of the Agreement.

Nothing compels the Secretary of State to act. The “mandatory duty” to trigger a border poll is in fact illusory. The vague language of the Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act, perplexing rulings by the High Court and Court of Appeal, and the obstinate position of the Northern Ireland Office have rendered this supposedly legal obligation utterly worthless (Burke, 2020). There are, then, no meaningful mechanisms to ensure that the Secretary of State will call a border poll in response to an observable shift of majority opinion in favour of a united Ireland (Murray, 2020).

We cannot even begin to know how the Secretary of State will determine if majority support for unity is likely. The NIO, supported by the courts, continually refuses to specify the criteria for triggering a border poll. It has issued several such refusals in the past few months, despite calls for clarity from groups like Ireland’s Future (McGreevy, 2021 & Simpson, 2021). The whole point of the Secretary of State not identifying the criteria for ordering a poll is to retain maximum flexibility for not ordering a poll. A crucial step in the exercise of the right of self-determination is left to the whimsy of the Secretary of State.

Binary Choice and the Lesson of Brexit

The Agreement mandates a simple binary choice on the principle of sovereignty. The decision in a border poll is about whether the north remains in the UK or becomes part of a united Ireland. This understanding of binary choice as a straightforward selection between alternative sovereignties is consistent with all the relevant constitutional documents and legislation produced since consent was defined in popular terms in 1972-73.

The Working Group moves away from the GFA’s conception of binary choice. It provides that a unification referendum in the north be on the principle of sovereignty plus the form of a united Ireland.[4] According to the Working Group, the northern border poll is not solely about choosing between the UK and a united Ireland. It’s also about approving governance structures for a 32-county Ireland. The referendum ballot will in essence ask voters two questions: if they agree to unification in principle and if they agree to the detailed model of a united Ireland. I strongly oppose the Working Group’s casting aside of binary choice, and agree with the Working Group’s critics who suggest that “the Agreement implies a choice about the basic principle of sovereignty, not about detailed designs” (para. 9.29).

Many people involved in organizing for Ireland’s constitutional future wish to discuss detailed arrangements for a new, unified polity. This kind of conversation makes sense, at the very least for maximizing the chance for voters to make an informed choice. In a constitutional referendum, voters need to have an idea of what they are voting for or against. This need for an informed vote took on additional importance in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum. In an address to Dublin City University, former President Mary McAleese applies the lesson of Brexit to the current debate about Ireland’s constitutional future:

… what did Brexit teach us? Here we had an epic, cathartic, watershed referendum entered into with virtually no pre-planning, no preparation, no testing of the waters of what was going on within the hearts and minds of the people who would vote. … Brexit has been an object lesson in how not to go about radical constitutional change. … Long before any future referendum goes live, we need to do what Brexit has abjectly failed to do. That is to delve deeply, objectively, … in a considered way, into all the issues … that would be raised by the ending of partition and the creation of a new reconciled Ireland (McAleese, 2019, n.p.).

It is one thing to have the kind of comprehensive constitutional discussion that McAleese wants, but it is quite another to include the outcome of that discussion on the referendum ballot paper, like the Working Group suggests.[5] As I explained at the beginning of this section, having a border poll on both the principle of sovereignty and the detailed model for a united Ireland is inconsistent with the Agreement’s conception of binary choice. More important than the inconsistency itself, though, are the severe consequences of the Working Group’s negation of binary choice.

In its related notions of self-determination and consent, the GFA confirms a northern veto over a change in sovereignty, what we might call a northern veto over the principle of unification. The Working Group inserts an additional and simultaneous northern veto over governance structures in a 32-county Ireland. To see why, let’s consider what concurrent referendums might mean if they are held according to the Working Group’s model.

Suppose that unity wins in the referendum in the south but loses in the north. These poll results mean that the north has vetoed the principle of unification, as is allowed by the Agreement. But they also mean that the north has vetoed the governance arrangements of a united Ireland, which is not supported by the Agreement. The unity option may lose in the north because some voters don’t approve of the form of a united Ireland that is on the ballot.[6] Unfortunately, the Working Group does not really address the question of this additional northern veto, though other authors who propose a similar referendum scheme do recognize this consequence.[7]

Granting the north a further veto over the detailed design of a united Ireland should be a direct and explicit decision put to, and made by, the Irish people. It should not be retrospectively read into the border-poll provisions of the Agreement, partly as a misguided attempt to implement the lesson of Brexit (Working Group, 2020, paras. 6.7 & 9.20). To state the obvious, there was no Brexit lesson in 1998 when the Agreement was struck: that lesson couldn’t have been a concern of the peace talks negotiators nor could it have been a reason why the GFA was popularly ratified in the north and south. No one in 1998 conceived of a border poll as a means of setting the governance structures of a united Ireland.

Everyone calling for detailed discussions of the constitutional form and content of a united Ireland has in a sense already learned the lesson of Brexit. As a result of these deliberations, voters will know what the issues are, if and when the concurrent border polls come. And they will know what alternative, but necessarily tentative, proposals for a future united Ireland are on offer. These details will aid voters in making an informed choice on the principle of unification. But the concurrent referendums themselves should not in any way be a decision on the structures of a united Ireland. No such proposal should be on the ballots. The decision as to the exact form of a united Ireland is properly made after border polls show majority support for unification. To do otherwise, as in the Working Group’s referendum configurations, is to introduce by stealth an additional northern veto over constitutional change.

Let me turn to another serious implication of the Working Group’s referendum configurations, which also involves introducing a northern veto.

Majoritarian versus Consensual Decision Rules

As is widely acknowledged, the GFA has two distinct decision rules for two separate questions. A simple majority in a border poll decides the question of unification. A consensus in a talks or deliberative process decides the question of internal governance. Consensualism was an integral part of the ground rules for negotiating the Agreement, in that issues could be advanced only on the basis of “sufficient consensus” among the parties involved in the talks. “The ethos of consensualism” is also evident in the many consociational elements in Strand One of the Agreement, including the provisions for Executive power-sharing and cross-community support in Assembly decisions (Working Group, 2020, paras. 1.8-10 & 1.30).

Since 1998, there has been a palpable tension between these two modes of decision-making. Anti-Agreement unionists led by Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and Robert McCartney sought immediately to undermine the GFA’s terms by arguing that constitutional change should be achieved by consensus, not by majority vote. Even David Trimble, the principal unionist architect of the Agreement, wanted to alter the GFA’s notion of majority consent. He proposed that nothing less than a super-majority of 60 percent in a border poll should oblige the Secretary of State to begin implementing constitutional change. All these interventions were partisan efforts to strengthen the unionist veto over altering the constitutional status of the north. And all were wrapped explicitly in the language of substituting a superior set of consensual rules for an inferior majoritarian device (Hansard, 1998).[8]

Scholars soon joined this debate. Roger Mac Ginty contrasted the essential goodness and sophistication of consensus with the inherent baseness and bluntness of majoritarianism. And he questioned whether it was legitimate or appropriate for a simple majority in a border poll to trigger the process of establishing Irish unity (Mac Ginty, 2002 & 2003). No one, it seems, anticipated Justice Richard Humphreys’s later argument that the simple sophistication of a majoritarian border poll upheld the equality of unionist and nationalist communities in the north and protected the principle of parity of esteem (Humphreys, 2009 & 2018).

Seamus Mallon’s recent book revived debate about the relative merits of consensualism and majoritarianism (Mallon, 2019). Like the anti-Agreement unionists, Mallon rejects the idea that a vote of 50% + 1 in a border poll should signal a win for unification. He proposes instead that the consensual procedures of parallel consent or weighted majority be applied to any decision on constitutional change. Whysall explicitly endorses Mallon’s questioning of the simple majority threshold. Whysall recognizes that it may be difficult directly “to take on” the Agreement by changing its requirement of 50% + 1. He recommends an indirect and informal alternative: supporters of Irish unity should leave behind simple majoritarianism and decide to proceed “more consensually” (Whysall, 2020, pp. 80 & 83). The Irish government’s “Shared Island” initiative also carries the obvious influence of Mallon as it hopelessly confounds consent with consensus (Programme for Government – Our Shared Future, 2020).

Many prominent figures have recently joined the attack on majority consent and celebration of consensus, including Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, Fianna Fáil spokesperson on the north Niall Blaney, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and influential commentators Andy Pollak, Fintan O’Toole, Eoghan Harris, John Manley and Tom Kelly. To this group must be added the bevy of unionist politicians and writers who similarly deem that unionist consent should be a requirement of constitutional change (Burke, 2020; Ward, 2020 & Alexander, 2021).

The Working Group is aware of the potentially troublesome relation between the two decision rules. It notes:

While every effort should be made to protect the consensual principle, it cannot ultimately override the simple majority principle on the question of sovereignty. Yet deciding on the constitutional future would also involve discussion and decision-making on matters extending well beyond the fundamental question of sovereignty. Notwithstanding the majoritarian (and therefore binary) nature of the basic choice, serious problems could arise if the full [consensual] ethos of the 1998 Agreement is not adhered to and maintained (Working Group, 2020, para. 1.30).

The Working Group has not successfully navigated the tension between consensual and majoritarian principles.

A fundamental problem with the Working Group’s approach is that its referendum configurations may culminate in a consensual model of decision-making being imposed on what should be a majoritarian choice about unification. This imposition creates the very situation that the Working Group aimed to avoid; its aim was not to have consensualism override majoritarianism. The difficulty here emerges as another consequence of the Working Group abandoning the Agreement’s conception of binary choice that limits a border poll to the principle of unification.

The previous section showed that the Working Group’s referendum schemes combine two questions, asking voters to make a choice about both the principle of unification and the governance of a united Ireland. This combination intermingles the two decision rules: unification is meant to be decided by simple majority, governance by consensus. Which decision rule is to prevail? The Working Group formulates elaborate referendum sequences and processes to try to address this issue. It is unsuccessful in this effort.

To understand the Working Group’s failure, we need to recall the unbridled and unaccountable power the Secretary of State has not to call a border poll. And we need to remember the NIO’s determined and successful efforts to resist any infringement of that power. We need also to consider the political context as a referendum seems to approach.

The Secretary of State is currently facing diverse public calls not to order a unification referendum until there is a broad consensus for Irish unity. The pressure to delay a referendum will intensify with mounting opinion poll or electoral evidence of an emerging pro-unity majority.[9] These urgings reinforce what seems to be the settled view within NIO that a border poll should not occur without the support of unionists.

The Working Group likewise encourages the Secretary of State to wait for consensus because it includes the question of governance structures—properly decided by consensus—in the referendum on unification. In a certain sense, the Working Group provides political cover for what is the Secretary of State’s natural inclination not to move on a border poll. ‘After all,’ the Secretary of State might reason, ‘since we are dealing with governance issues, let’s give the deliberative process more time to consolidate a broad-based consensus.’

I doubt that a consensus will emerge, so we are left waiting for the holding of a border poll; waiting, that is, for the process of constitutional change in the north to begin. And we could be kept waiting for a very long time, perhaps forever. Awaiting consensus on a border poll is, as we know, the strongest possible form of unionist veto over Irish unity. In effect, the lack of consensus answers the question of unification, and the answer is ‘No.’

Conclusion

As constitutional discussion continues, it’s essential that nationalists and republicans disrupt the emerging scholarly narrative, resist the imbalance in negotiating expectations, be wary of attempts to limit the exercise of the right of self-determination, oppose efforts to insert additional communal vetoes, and guard against the erosion of the simple majority rule for constitutional change.

Circumstances seem to be imposing a negative agenda on supporters of Irish unity, who need constantly to stay alert to the marginalization of their constitutional aims. Nationalists and republicans must persevere to open the political space necessary to engage in the important work of creating a positive and progressive vision of a newly-unified Ireland.

Notes

[1] I’ve submitted 15 pages of feedback to the Working Group, which take issue with some central aspects of its Interim Report. This paper draws from the arguments I made in my response to the Working Group and in “Stealing Irish Unity: The Repertoire of Thieves” (Burke, 2020 & 2021).

[2] Coleman (2019) is an exception to the trend described in this paragraph. She takes a more balanced approach that interrogates contemporary unionist fears and concerns.

[3] The Agreement also gives the Secretary of State a discretionary power to call a referendum at virtually any time. I focus on the mandatory duty for two reasons: much of the debate about a border poll concerns whether the duty’s condition of a “likely majority for unity” is on the verge of being met; and successive Secretaries of State have shown little inclination to exercise the discretionary power.

[4] In two of its favoured referendum configurations, it also provides that the referendums be about the process for designing a united Ireland (Working Group, 2020, chap 9). This further substantiates my point that the Working Group has travelled a considerable distance from the Agreement’s notion of simple binary choice. I don’t address the implications of including process questions in the referendums because I want to highlight the consequences of including the question of governance structures.

[5] I assume, for the moment and the sake of argument, that constitutional discussion will yield an agreement or consensus on the form of a united Ireland, which will allow the governance question to appear on the referendum ballot. Later on, I examine the implications of what might happen in the much more likely event that no consensus is reached.

[6] Some of the Working Group’s referendum configurations are incredibly complex. Two of them provide that the concurrent referendums be about default or interim arrangements of the form of a united Ireland that could, in the end, become final arrangements (Working Group, 2020, chaps. 9 & 10). As the northern veto remains over these default/interim and possibly final terms, my general argument in the body of the paper holds.

[7] The Working Group’s referendum configurations also introduce a southern veto. I’ve focused on the northern veto because I’m primarily concerned with the border poll provisions of the GFA, which delineate the process of constitutional change in the north. In an analysis similar to that of the Working Group, Murray and O’Donoghue propose a model (Model III) that has concurrent referendums on both the principle and detailed form of unification. They understand that this kind of model contains vetoes for both jurisdictions in Ireland, though they don’t use the term “veto.” The authors note, for instance, that their Model III “does … mean that Ireland’s post-unification constitution will be constructed by the will of two peoples [in the north and south] rather than a single [all-Ireland] body of constituent power holders” (Murray & O’Donoghue, 2019, pp. 43-44).

[8] Colin Murray (2020) brought this debate to my attention.

[9] Public pressure to call a border poll will also increase, especially from Sinn Féin and groups like Ireland’s Future. I suspect that the pressure to delay will outweigh the pressure to proceed. The voices of caution will be loud and come from many influential groups. And, as I say in the body of the paper, they will be asking the Secretary of State to stay with rather than overturn his predisposition not to call a poll.

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Whysall, A. (2021a). “Northern Ireland in its centenary year: a changing landscape.” Constitution Unit, University College London. 11 February. Retrieved from constitution-unit.com/2021/02/11/northern-ireland-in-its-centenary-year-a-changing-landscape/

Whysall, A. (2021b). “Northern Ireland in its centenary year: reviving the promise of the Good Friday Agreement.” Constitution Unit, University College London. 12 February. Retrieved from https://constitution-unit.com/2021/02/12/northern-ireland-in-its-centenary-year-reviving-the-promise-of-the-good-friday-agreement/

Working Group. (2020). Interim Report. Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland. The Constitution Unit, University College London. November. Retrieved from https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/elections-and-referendums/working-group-unification-referendums-island-ireland

⏮ Mike Burke has lectured in Politics and Public Administration in Canada for over 30 years.