Two thirds in North now oppose peace deal

[Alliance]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/ ... 48,00.html

Some interesting polling on this article in the Times today. I don't put much stock in polls of such low numbers but...

ALMOST two thirds of adults in Northern Ireland do not support the British and Irish governments’ policy that the Good Friday agreement should be implemented in full.

The findings, in a survey funded by the Electoral Commission for Northern Ireland and other bodies, will be a blow to Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair who have stated their intention to see the agreement put in place later this year.

Only 22% agreed with the statement that “the agreement is basically right but just needs to be implemented”. Most believed that it needed to be renegotiated either in full (14%) or in part (41%) and almost one in 10 (9%) wanted it scrapped. Only half the population (51%) would vote for it again in a new referendum.

The Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, carried out by the University of Ulster and Queen’s University between October 2005 and January 2006, makes sobering reading for Ahern and Blair as they push for full implementation by November 24.

Support for full implementation is strongest among Catholics (38%) but the policy is not supported by a majority. More Catholics (41%) feel that the agreement “is basically right but the specifics need to be renegotiated”, a view shared by a similar percentage of Protestants.

Only 14% of the 1,200 voters surveyed felt that the Northern Ireland assembly had made much impact on people’s lives and 43% did not mind much whether it was abolished or not.

However, the governments will take confidence from findings which show a decrease in sectarian attitudes. Only a tiny minority of each religious grouping (4% of Protestants and 2% of Catholics) say they feel unfavourably towards the other community.

Hardly any Protestants favour Irish unity but most (72%) said they would accept it if a majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to end partition. However, a substantial proportion — one in four — said they would find a united Ireland “almost impossible to accept” even if people voted for it.

They are unlikely to be faced with the dilemma. The survey indicates that partition is unlikely to be abandoned within the present generation and that even among Catholics a majority would not vote to abolish the border.

Just more than half of northern Catholics (60%) think of themselves as Irish and a still smaller proportion, 52%, said they were nationalist. Yet just 38% favour Irish unity over a range of other options. Nearly as many Catholics (32%) wanted to remain in the UK while 13% would prefer an independent Ulster. Only 3% said they would find it “almost impossible to accept” if Irish unity never happened.

The findings put into perspective demands from Sinn Fein that the Irish government launch a strategy to end partition. All the signs suggest that Northern Ireland is stabilising under direct rule from Britain with Irish government input and people are increasingly concerned about economic rather than social issues.

[Catalpa]

Just more than half of northern Catholics (60%) think of themselves as Irish and a still smaller proportion, 52%, said they were nationalist. Yet just 38% favour Irish unity over a range of other options. Nearly as many Catholics (32%) wanted to remain in the UK while 13% would prefer an independent Ulster. Only 3% said they would find it “almost impossible to accept” if Irish unity never happened.

In that case you expect to see some correlation between what is stated here and election turnouts.

But we don't.

[Justin]

[i]Just more than half of northern Catholics (60%) think of themselves as Irish ...

Wonder who 'the other bodies' conducting the polling were.....the UVF?

[yorick]

Two thirds in North now oppose peace deal

and

Only half the population (51%) would vote for it again in a new referendum.

So two-thirds oppose it but a majority would support it in a referendum? It's difficult to take anything of substance out of this poll, other than the Sunday Times' determination to construct a dramatic headline out of nothing...

[smiffy]

In that case you expect to see some correlation between what is stated here and election turnouts.

I don't see why.

[Sidewinder]

Just more than half of northern Catholics (60%) think of themselves as Irish and a still smaller proportion, 52%, said they were nationalist. Yet just 38% favour Irish unity over a range of other options. Nearly as many Catholics (32%) wanted to remain in the UK while 13% would prefer an independent Ulster. Only 3% said they would find it “almost impossible to accept” if Irish unity never happened.

In that case you expect to see some correlation between what is stated here and election turnouts.

But we don't.

That's because northern nationalists lie through their teeth to pollsters. I do it myself any time I'm home. It's a legacy of Old Stormont and the troubles - the fear and suspicion is that anyone official asking questions may be collecting information on the political attitudes of the populace and then passing that information on to the "security" forces and/or the Loyalist death squads (and for most of my life I've considered these two basically one and the same).

In the 70s 80s and 90s, being gormless enough to tell some agent of officialdom that you wanted a UI would have got you on their little lists in short order. And we all know where those little lists ended up, don't we? Purely by amazing coincidence, of course.

Perhaps ordinary unionists do the same, though in their case it'd be driven more by that old time Ulster Prod spirit of contrarianism.

Any poll on such matters in the north is worse than useless, it's a pack of lies.

[pogo]

It's a legacy of Old Stormont and the troubles - the fear and suspicion is that anyone official asking questions may be collecting information on the political attitudes of the populace and then passing that information on to the "security" forces and/or the Loyalist death squads (and for most of my life I've considered these two basically one and the same).

What an utterly pathetic and ridiculously melodramatic response.

Sidewinder - the Republican version of True.

[duff]

They probably done the survey on the Malone road.

[Salthill]

Polls in the North have become more accurate in recent times.

The stuff on the GFA indicates that people want it to work, and are so fed up with delays that they think some changes might be required. THe desireabilty of this is another thing - I think reopening it would be a massive act of bad faith and hugely risky in terms of undermining the idea that there is a fixed will as demonstrated in 98.

There's a lot of stuff going back years on identity and religion in the North. Haven't got it handy, but the RC self-escription as Irish number is, I seem to recall, lower than you would expect for many reasons including a wish to stay away from politics, wariness of interviewers and having a UK passport and feeling confused because of it.

If someone wants this to be an informed forum, checking these past surveys, most conducted by non-media funded academics, will give the answer. Though bottom line is that RC=Irish=Unity Now and Prot=Brit=Unity Never is not and has never been an accurate way of summing up NI identity. It's more confused than that and people don't always agree with the stated national policy of the party they vote for.

[Catalpa]

In that case you expect to see some correlation between what is stated here and election turnouts.

I don't see why.

No Smiffy you wouldn't would you...