NEW IRELAND ÉIRE NUA
Westminster’s Awake BY KEVIN MEAGHER
Kevin Meagher is author of ‘A United Ireland: Why Unification is Inevitable and How it Will Come About’ and ‘What A Bloody Awful Country: Northern Ireland’s Century of Division.’ He is a former special adviser to the last Labour Secretary of State, Shaun Woodward.
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’ve always found the phrase a bit unusual. The one in the Good Friday Agreement that empowers the Secretary of State to call a border 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.’
Overlooking the dated language, (especially as we have seen three female Secretaries of State in that time), the idea that a constitutional referendum affecting the integrity of the United Kingdom, not to mention that of the Republic of Ireland, could be called at the whim of a middle-ranking British cabinet minister is well, fanciful. My assumption is that the phrase was meant to distance the prime minister of the day – preventing the triggering of a poll from becoming a bargaining chip in negotiations in a scenario where a government needed the support of smaller parties – like the unionists - to prop-up its position in the House of Commons. Of course, this is not an academic point and has happened on three occasions over the past 40 years, with James Callaghan, John Major and Theresa May all ending-up reliant on unionist votes for their administrations’ survival. Despite the wording in the agreement, the reality is that calling a poll will be the culmination of an unwritten, but intuitive process, requiring three elements to harmonise.
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