Apathy: greater threat to Nationalism than Unionism…
Although it is sadly missing from our archives (due to a nasty accident on the server of a previous UK-based host) our first on-the-ground foray was the November Assembly Election in 2003. It was an awesome experience. Not least because of the way activists and voters turned out in such huge numbers. But it seems apathy is a growing factor here as elsewhere in the UK. American Student Patrick Lane says it’s an element that Unionist politicians (whose base has always suffered much more from apathy than nationalism) should forge a strategy to use it to their advantage…By Patrick Lane
Forget the armalite, try apathy…
A recent BBC report notes that apathy, unlike home prices, is on the rise and has been for some time across the UK. This trend proves especially true in NI:
“Sixty years ago, three quarters of those entitled to vote in Northern Ireland exercised their right. By 2005, the number staying at home had risen to more than a third…
Explanation for the growth takes several factors into account; with the end of the Troubles and, until recently, an improved economy, the emigration flow has slowed considerably with evidence that the “brain drain” of young professionals drifting overseas has been stemmed. In Northern Ireland over the past five years, there has been a huge influx of foreign nationals, particularly from eastern Europe.
In terms of age profile, Northern Ireland comes second in the UK with an average age of 36.8 compared with 42.6 in Cornwall and 41.7 in Scotland. At opposite ends of the spectrum, 6.4% of the NI population is under five, with 16% of pensionable age or over.”
While indifference has apparently permeated NI society, these apathetic people amazingly still find the time and the motivation to answer surveys.
As the social thermometer of NI, the 2007 Life and Times Survey reports, voter disregard for the political system varies little by religion, and therefore may indeed vary little by personal preference of the constitutional status of NI. So with an equal amount on both sides of the political spectrum indifferent to politics, what about utilizing the apathy of the electorate as a political tool?
For instance the DUP could propose an Irish Language Act to appease a segment of the nationalist populace, hopefully lulling a further percentage of nationalists into the ranks of the apathetic. Through the appeasement of several nationalist demands (i.e. ILA, P & J), the unionist parties could take the proverbial wind out the sails of Sinn Fein, further removing any pragmatic benefit of a shift in the constitutional status of NI. Of course one could argue that this strategy of appeasement leading to apathy will backfire on the unionist parties, which it very well might, but one could also argue that this strategy is currently in effect, albeit implicit, slow, and with conditions.
Apathy exists as a far greater threat to nationalism than unionism, as a small, but sizeable number of Catholics prefers the union to a UI. Since demographics and political realities favor unionism, nationalism must offer something beyond an ideology to convince those ‘garden center’ Protestants and disaffected Catholics that a UI will be in their best interests. Nationalists must act to stem the tide of apathy within the ranks of their traditional supporters, while hoping that those of a unionist background grow apathetic not only to NI politics, but also to the border.
If this trend continues perhaps NI’s major political parties will broaden their appeals to a greater portion of the populace, no longer catering to one half of the political divide, which of course relies upon Sinn Fein and the DUP undergoing a public relations transformation. I could just be a hopeful American who voted for Obama, but apathy might just change the nature of NI politics.
Even that is not true. They are still in serious contention for one seat in West Belfast Diane Dodds’ loss the last time being due to a combo of suboptimal unionist turnout and hyperefficient SF vote management.
Your statement proves the truth of my statement. The 2001 census, after much rejigging, decided that 16.22% of the population were of Protestant Community background though the number who actually stated they were was more like 13.5%. I do not like equating religion with politics, but I think we can agree that there aren’t many Catholic Unionists or Protestant Nationalists in West Belfast.
By the time of the 2007 either the 16.22% had fallen by about 700 votes, or that was an overcalculation. A quota, I think you should know is 100 / 7 = 14.2857143%. So your West Belfast Unionists have actually fallen below a quota, but they continue, as you demonstrate, to imagine that they are only suffering from a “suboptimal turnout”. The reason for the suboptimal turnout is that the voters who would make it into an optimal turnout are dead or have moved away.
One of my favourite authors is called Lord Frederic Hamilton, an aristocratic gentleman of the middle Victorian era. In one of his books—Vanished Pomps I think—he describes an election in Belfast. This Unionist/Nationalist contest is very tight, and may hinge on one vote. (The electorates were much smaller in those days of property qualification.)
But that voter, a Nationalist, is down in Dublin for the night, and is coming back by train. The signalman is a good Orangeman and accordingly he halts the train in its tracks until after the polls have closed, allowing the Unionist candidate to take the seat.
What this demonstrates is that the Unionists are and always have been the most skilful users and abusers of the electoral system, probably on the planet. Indeed, the whole province was created as an act of electoral abuse. Only the fact of prolonged proximity has brought Ulster’s Nationalist population to a poor second.
So when someone tells me that a poor Unionist showing in a EU Parliamentary or West Belfast Assembly election is due to “suboptimal turnout”, then I’m afraid I don’t believe him. They never miss a trick, God bless them, they never do.
1. ‘’The Catholic birth rate is rising’’
Well I’m glad to hear it, but I suspect it must be the Poles. None of my contemporaries have distinguished themselves in the reproduction stakes.
But all of this is for the future. It will take at least a generation for Polish immigrants to be absorbed into the general Catholic population and take the slightest interest in local politics.
This one is worth teasing out. At present (as per NISRA: http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/population/migration/In_Mig0607.xls) most immigrants to N.I. are from countries with a traditionally Catholic background (Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia etc.).
This raises the interesting issue of what will happen when Grazyna from Gdansk (or the daughter of parents from Gdansk) gets hitched to Fergus from the Falls. The effects will really kick in with their offspring.
The Poles are like Southern Irish Catholics back in the 50’s in terms of their fanatical devotion to the faith. Thus Grazyna will most likely eschew contraception and have loads of kids. Grazyna will tend to pass on her *spiritual* Catholicism to the next generation, with the continued tendency to large families, while Fergus passes on his *political* Catholicism. The second generation moreover will tend grow up as *NI* Catholics subjected to all the formative influences (which admittedly may not be entirely benign), such as the GAA, denominational schools etc. that go along with that. Essentially they will go native N.I. Catholic in every sense.
The result:
Lord Brookeborough doing a Watusi in his grave.
Fergus and Grazyna: very nice. But this is one for 2027, not now.
I may well be around in 2027, but I would not wish to try to make up the Almighty’s mind for Him.
Also, I don’t know of any Poles with more than one child.
And what if Grazyna marries Billy from the Shankill and he converts her?
“The Poles are like Southern Irish Catholics back in the 50’s in terms of their fanatical devotion to the faith. ”
No they ain’t – not in Cardiff at least – not very religious at all.
She could convert him.
Back to West Belfast and the disappointed Unionist candidate. There is not a full quota of unionist voters in this constituency.
Unionist candidates gained 13.95% of the vote in 1998, 12.8% in 2001, 13.8% in 2003, 12.9% in 2005 and 12.5% in 2007. A quota is 14.28%. In any other consituency this would not matter, but there are very few transfers for the DUP in West Belfast.
Diane Dodds got in by a fluke in 2003 without achieving a quota because there were too many Nationalist candidates.
I would suggest that the actual number of Unionist voters in WB is only 12.5% of the total, and this is the same as the number of Protestants there. Unionism in WB is a headless chicken which is still running around, not realising that it is dead.
Stories of apathy among Unionist voters have been widely exaggerated. And this result shows there isn’t much apathy among Nationalists either.
On attempting to separate out the effects of in migration on the birth rate. I’ve reposted part of my post on birth rates from another thread. You can see below that the birth rate has risen just as fast in areas with relatively light in migration (Derry & Strabane) as in areas with heavier in migration (Newry & Magherafelt). I would argue, this suggests that in migration is not the main cause of the rise in birth rates.
From Objecvtivists link : http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/population/migration/In_Mig0607.xls)
—– Previous post
Based on the figures from Q2 2008, and taking administrative areas recomended by academic expert Youssef Courbage as being differentiating, we can estimate current birth rates as
Catholic : 15.4 per 1000
Protestant : 12.88 per 1000
With Catholics already making up a majority of the younger age cohorts.
Take a look at the figures below. In purely sectarian terms, nationalists may be able to pick their moment. If that’s the case a good stab at trying to persuade people rather than blundering in to 50% +1 makes a lot more sense.
2008 figures are for Q2 (annualised), 2006 & 2004 are annual rates.
birth rate year 2008 2006 2004
Newry & Mourne 16.5 15.1 15.6
Derry 15.2 14.2 13.9
Omagh 13.7 13.5 12.9
Strabane 15.0 13.9 12.5
Magherafelt 16.6 14.7 14.3
Average 15.4 14.28 13.84
Newtonabbey 15.2 13.4 13.0
Castelreagh 13.1 11.4 10.8
Ards 13 11.3 11.6
North Down 11.5 11.3 10.9
Carrickfergus 11.6 11.9 11.3
Average 12.88 11.86 11.52
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/publications/qtr_report/qtr2_2008.pdf
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/publications/annual_reports/2006/RG2006.pdf
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/publications/annual_reports/2004/Appendix2.pdf
PaddyReilly,
Sorry to come back to this so late, but I have another life!
[Me] So while Protestants were 51.6% of the 2001 electorate, unionists received only 44.9% of the vote
[You] No, Nicholas Whyte’s site (http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/lgbelfast.htm)
gives the Protestant percentage as 48.59%.
Whyte gives the proportons for the whole population. I am giving them for the electorate (i.e. those aged 18 and over). Two different things. Hence my figure is correct.
I think you should use the actual census results, rather than second-hand information from Whyte’s site, which is, incidentally, riddled with errors.
I have learnt several things from this thread. One of them is that the estimate for “Community Protestants” in West Belfast exceeds the observable Unionist electorate by several percent, whereas the actual stated percentage of Protestants corresponds to the Unionist Percentage exactly.
What I imagine happened is that given say 12% not stated, the censors assigned a reasonable number (say 3.5%) of these to the Protestant Community, ignoring the fact that Protestants are extremely thin on the ground in this area. The correct figure was more likely to be 0.3%.
West Belfast being a part of Belfast, then it follows that this misestimate has been incorporated in Belfast’s statistics as well.
Just another reason why citing the religious figures for the Census is folly. Firstly, we have no right to assume that Protestant = Unionist, Catholic = Nationalist. Secondly, the religious data have not been supplied by a significant part of the population. Thirdly, the community of the non-staters has been calculated and miscalculated by the censors.
So, when doing politics, stick to the electoral returns. There are after all enough of them. Censal data is at best ancillary.
Paddy Reily – “Secondly, the religious data have not been supplied by a significant part of the population”
Paddy it’s actually only 2.7% or so that we have no community background for. There were two questions on religion / community background – the second caught a lot of people who were undeclared on the first.
The completely uncategorised are distributed differently across age groups – with a much higher proportion of the young being undeclared than the old.
It’s actually only 2.7% or so that we have no community background for
That may be an average but it varies greatly from constituency to constituency, urban areas being particularly high.
As I calculate it, the Euro Unionist vote was:-
1979: 60.8
1984: 58.0
1989: 57.8
1994: 55.4
1999: 52.3
2004: 48.6
There was an unrepresentatively high drop in 2004 due to a strong showing by a Centrist candidate, and the tranfers from that candidate took the Unionist percentage back over 50% and secured the second seat for the UUP. But there is a fairly uniform downward trend. In 2004 the SDLP candidate finished about 31,000 votes behind the UUP one
Very interesting I’m sure, although I thought we were talking about first choice votes, so why yo’
ve introduced “transfers”, I’m not quite sure.
Also, if you look again at my point which you have kindly quoted, but presumably not read:
If I’m not mistaken, the % Unionist vote has increased vis-a-vis the total nationalist one over the last 2 Euro elections.
Crucial phrase there in emphasis.
Also I notice that you’ve left my slightly more challenging question well along, why would a nationalist voter in North Down be less likely to vote than a Unionist one in West Belfast in a Westmister election. It’s a toughie, I know.
Why would a nationalist voter in North Down be less likely to vote than a Unionist one in West Belfast in a Westmister election.
This is indeed a a difficult one. It seems to be partly a matter of tradition. Unionists continue to vote Unionist in West Belfast because Unionists once held WB and they have not yet updated their consciousness to the fact that they don’t even have a single Stormont quota now. Nationalists have never held even a Stormont seat in N Down and so do not believe that they are capable of winning one. (Probably, they aren’t).
The Census believes that 11.68% of the population of North Down is Catholic yet Nationalist parties receive precisely 4.7% of the vote, the rest of the Catholic vote presumably going to Alliance and the Greens. However, in European elections, they might add to this a subsequent, and effective preference for the SDLP, which would give the appearance of an increase in the Nationalist vote.
As for the question of the Euro elections, what I think is happening is that you are falling into the common error of failing to adapt your thinking to multiple choice elections and confusing the 1st preferences with the effective vote.
I may give my first pref to the Greens, but this does not mean that the Nationalist vote has diminished. The Greens are not going to win a Euro seat, so my giving them a 1st pref is a bit of encouragement, nothing more. It is my 2nd (or 3rd) pref which is the effective vote, the one which helps to elect.
The vis-a-vis qualification comes from thinking in this erroneous way. There is only one thing at stake in a Euro election, and that is whether the UUP or the SDLP get the 3rd seat. Thus the working of this election forces us to make up our minds whether we are Unionists or Nationalists. There can be no ducking the question. So any diminution in the Unionist vote is an increase in the nationalist.
Gilliland in 2004 as the centrist candidate put on a creditable performance and got far more votes than the Alliance candidate in 1999, but he only had the loan of those votes. Presently they were taken away from him and divided between the UUP and SDLP.
So when you say vis-à-vis the Nationalist vote, you probably mean vis-à-vis the Nationalist 1st pref vote, which is not the same thing.
Just for my two cents
IT WAS SNOWING UIN ANTRIM THIS MEANS THE DEATH OF REPUBLICANISM AND THE END OF SINN FEIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yeah whatever
Very interesting I’m sure, although I thought we were talking about first choice votes, so why you’ve introduced “transfers”, I’m not quite sure.
I counted transfers because they’re what decided the outcome! You seem not to have noticed that this is a transferrable vote election, not a first-past-the-post one.
Paddy – I’m away from data but it’s useful to compare results from Euro and other elections at around the same time. From memory overall turnout higher in other elections as is Unionist performance. Not exactly a syllogism but does tend to indicate a lower Unionist turnout in the Euro elections.
Does tend to indicate a lower Unionist turnout in the Euro elections
Or a higher Nationalist turnout, due to the fact that for some of them this is their only chance of influencing the outcome of an election? Or is this because Deeny and the likes do not stand for Euro elections?
As far as I can tell, the Euro elections set a pattern which is confirmed by the other types of election a couple of years later. Thus the 48.6% first pref for Unionists in Euro 2004 (first time the Unionist vote has fallen below 50) was repeated by a similar figure (I haven’t encountered anyone who has worked it out exactly, due to the enormous number of Unionist parties and candidates, but I’m fairly certain it’s between 48 and 49%) in Assembly 2007.
So I expect a 46.1% first pref for Unionists (plus approximately 4% of transfers)(with a generous error margin) in next years Euro election, followed by a similar result in the Assembly and Westminster elections which follow.
“Thus the 48.6% first pref for Unionists in Euro 2004 (first time the Unionist vote has fallen below 50)”
Not quite
2001 Local Elections can be tabulated as follows -combined unionists (including unionist-inclined independents)
49.7%, combined nationalists 40.6%.
Well the problem with local government elections is that local government and politics tend to get mixed up in the issue, as politics sometimes does in Assembly and Westminster elections. The joy of the Euro elections is that, as soon as the piddling rivalry of UUP and DUP and SF and SDLP is dispensed with, it turns into a pure sectarian headcount: in effect, a substitute referendum. Nobody ever dreams of mentioning how they intend to run Europe.