Should the unity question be asked at every election?

I am with Chris in being sceptical about the latest polling on the unity question.

I don’t know a single person who genuinely believes the pro-Unity vote would be less than 30% in a Border Poll, which suggests the survey lacks credibility and is inappropriately weighted like the NI Life & Times.

— Chris Donnelly (@chrisadonnelly) November 4, 2021

We can argue about the merits of the survey and its methodology. But fundamentally the only poll that matters is the electorate.

Instead of trying to guess people’s views on unity, why not just ask them?

For all future elections we could have a question at the bottom of the ballot, ‘Do you want Irish unity?’ and a simple yes/no answer. You could make it a condition that we only run the actual border poll once this figure reaches 50% or higher.

If Unionists are so confident of keeping Northern Ireland in the Union, why would they fear asking the people what they think?

Sir Jeffrey – "poll shows overwhelming support for the Union" https://t.co/fkOtCwNnyn via @duponline

— DUP (@duponline) November 4, 2021

Brian O'Neill

I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.