Following the recent local election results, there have been renewed calls for a border poll or clarification on the criteria for calling one. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, states that a poll will be called by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland “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 UK and form part of a united Ireland”.
This is very vague, to say the least, so I think people have a reasonable point asking for clarification. Personally, I think the question should be asked at every election to understand people’s views.
The problem with the border poll debate is it sucks up all the political oxygen in the room. Like Scottish Independence, it be the main topic of debate for the next decade or longer.
Our politicians are on comfortable ground with the border poll debate. Ask them for specific ideas on how to fix our education or health service and you will be met with a blank stare. But ask a question about a border poll and they can waffle on for hours.
Then you have the people who assert that reunification will be the answer to all our problems. An all-Ireland health service will fix our health problems. Reunification will make us all richer and more attractive and we will all live happily ever after. I actually agree that all island bodies for health etc make sense. We are a small Island and it is crazy that people in Newry for example can not get treatment in Dundalk just 20 mins away. As medicine becomes ever more specialised we need all island centres of excellence.
But even the best-case timescale for reunification, let’s say 15 years, this means we still have 15 years of our crap public services to cope with. Telling someone with cancer that everything will be ok in a United Ireland is not much use to them as they will not be alive to see it.
We need to send a clear message to our politicians that we want jam today, not jam tomorrow. Stop telling us how life will be better in the future, we want you to sort out today’s problems.
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.
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