Is the end of the Union in sight? (It may well be but then again…)

[Lar Naparka]

More as a penitential exercise than anything else, I've looked at the results of all NI elections throughout the noughties. (My source is: http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/)

The purpose of the exercise was to see if it were possible to come up with a forecast of the outcome of a UI referendum. This could be any time in the near to medium term future based on those results.
I wonder if others on the board would also care to consider the stats and let the rest of us know what they think of them.

Points to keep in mind.

First, a public health warning...
I'm no statistician and I've often been told that I could clear Croke Park in double quick time when I start meddling with stats!

Second, I've omitted the results I don't consider to be relevant to the discussion eg numbers of seats won.

Third, I would consider such a poll to be a classic Orange vs. Green confrontation, where no local issues etc. come into the reckoning. Because of this I added the DUP/UUP totals and put them on the Orange side to begin with. Likewise, the Stoops and Shinners can be napped to belong almost exclusively to the Green side
.
Fourth, I added a Shift feature to the original presentation of stats.
Here, I took the results of the more recent election and recorded the change from the one prior to that.
By way of example, the Orange vote in the Westminster elections dropped by 11.2% between elections and the Alliance votes increased by 2.4%.

Here goes.....

[Lar Naparka]

FFS! I thought I had the image inserted correctly. It showed up okay when I was testing it out.
Any kind soul able to tell me where I have goofed?

[armaghniac]

I wouldn't say that the end of the Union is entirely within sight at this stage, but the trends are only going one way. But these kind of calculations require looking at turnout, transfers, the composition of others etc.

Lar, I right clicked on the image on that page and used that address within the [img] tags.

[Lar Naparka]

I wouldn't say that the end of the Union is entirely within sight at this stage, but the trends are only going one way. But these kind of calculations require looking at turnout, transfers, the composition of others etc.

Lar, I right clicked on the image on that page and used that address within the [img] tags.

Thanks, armaghaniac, I think we can go by your image and, with luck, others can use it for reference. I think the Internet today is more mixed up than I am!
I had coded the image link correctly and it showed up in Google Chrome alright but not in Firefox.
On my machine, your graphic and your comments below it are not showing up either. Everything is fine in Google.

With regard to your comments after the chart, I'd say a quick look doesn't tell the true story and the Green vote is likely to be far closer to 50% than the bare stats reveal.

To keep the peace on the domestic front, I'd better go out and cut the garden now but I'll give my reasons for this later.

[armaghniac]

To keep the peace on the domestic front, I'd better go out and cut the garden now

yes, keep those greens from growing too quickly.

It's like the joke about the man whose wife said
"cut the grass, it's up to the window"
"why should I cut it, let the guy in the downstairs flat cut it!"

[Bensars]

All based on turnout I would estimate of about 60%. if ever there was a referendum I would expect a much larger turnout which would negate the stats quoted. Still a long way away.

[dillinger]

What Wills and Kate over already? Have i missed something? Union between N. Ire and GB, no, prob about 40 yrs i think. Present figures if you go by reglion kids at school. Protestant 35%, Catholic and other, well the rest. Need to check that, but it's pretty close to them figures.

[Evil Genius]

More as a penitential exercise than anything else, I've looked at the results of all NI elections throughout the noughties. (My source is: http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/)

The purpose of the exercise was to see if it were possible to come up with a forecast of the outcome of a UI referendum. This could be any time in the near to medium term future based on those results.
I wonder if others on the board would also care to consider the stats and let the rest of us know what they think of them.

Points to keep in mind.

First, a public health warning...
I'm no statistician and I've often been told that I could clear Croke Park in double quick time when I start meddling with stats!

Second, I've omitted the results I don't consider to be relevant to the discussion eg numbers of seats won.

Third, I would consider such a poll to be a classic Orange vs. Green confrontation, where no local issues etc. come into the reckoning. Because of this I added the DUP/UUP totals and put them on the Orange side to begin with. Likewise, the Stoops and Shinners can be napped to belong almost exclusively to the Green side
.
Fourth, I added a Shift feature to the original presentation of stats.
Here, I took the results of the more recent election and recorded the change from the one prior to that.
By way of example, the Orange vote in the Westminster elections dropped by 11.2% between elections and the Alliance votes increased by 2.4%.

Here goes.....

Sorry, LN, but without taking the time to go further into your analysis myself, I suspect it is fundamentally flawed.

That is, when I was going through the figures for my own stats on another thread, I'm pretty sure that the large majority of those voters you categorise as "Others" are actually Unionists who would undoubtedly vote "No" to a UI in any Referendum.


That is because the Unionist vote, unlike its Nationalist counterpart, has been heavily splintered since the 1970's. Therefore what you term "Others" is almost exclusively composed of "Hardline Unionism" (TUV etc), "Paramilitary Unionism" (UDP, PUP etc), "Independent Unionism" (McCartney, Dixon, Hermon, Connor etc) and "Mainland Unionism" (Tories, UKIP, BNP etc). Individually each of these groupings might be small, but collectively they must amount to several percentage points at each election.

Moreover, the impact of Alliance voters in any Referendum cannot be discounted. At worst*, they will split along the lines of the rest of NI - say 53% to 47%?. But at best*, they will come down more heavily in favour of the Union. My reasoning behind this is threefold:
1. I get the impression that Alliance generally poll better in Unionist-majority areas than Nationalist-majority (see, eg, Naomi Wide in East Belfast);
2. The Alliance Party is already tacitly "pro-Union", in the sense that it accepts the status quo;
3. Alliance voters are more prosperous/middle-class than average and so would be risking more, in material terms at least, by taking a leap into the unknown of a UI.

Of course, I am open to correction by anyone who analyses the figures for "Others" more closely, but should such voters be either completely "agnostic" on the subject, or even if they split 50/50 over it, the Nationalist vote would still not be big enough to hit the magic 50%+1 mark.

Nor do I see any sign of that changing in the foreseeable future - quite the contrary, in fact.


* - From a Unionist point of view 

[Evil Genius]

All based on turnout I would estimate of about 60%. if ever there was a referendum I would expect a much larger turnout which would negate the stats quoted. Still a long way away.

Either way, I cannot see the "turnout" argument assisting Nationalism.

That is, if the Nationalist parties are poor at getting their vote out at elections compared to Unionism, then why should they be more successful (relatively-speaking) for a referendum?

Alternatively, if Nationalism is better than Unionism at "getting the vote out" at elections, and they can still only muster around 43%, where is the extra 7% going to come from?

Garden Centre Taigs? 

[Evil Genius]

What Wills and Kate over already? Have i missed something? Union between N. Ire and GB, no, prob about 40 yrs i think. Present figures if you go by reglion kids at school. Protestant 35%, Catholic and other, well the rest. Need to check that, but it's pretty close to them figures.

The number of RC's versus Prods has been increasing throughout this Century.

The number of Nationalist voters (versus Unionist voters, that is) has not.

Therefore until Nationalism can address that weakness, it will make no progress. And even if it can, as LeoMc argues persuasively in post #237 of this thread, it's liable to take rather more than 40 years:
http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=19075.225

Of course, Nationalism might close the gap rather quicker if it could manage to appeal to Unionists to switch allegiances. That said, however, it would have to overcome the "Aye, like Fcuk we will" barrier first...

[Lar Naparka]

Sorry, LN, but without taking the time to go further into your analysis myself, I suspect it is fundamentally flawed.

That is, when I was going through the figures for my own stats on another thread, I'm pretty sure that the large majority of those voters you categorise as "Others" are actually Unionists who would undoubtedly vote "No" to a UI in any Referendum.


That is because the Unionist vote, unlike its Nationalist counterpart, has been heavily splintered since the 1970's. Therefore what you term "Others" is almost exclusively composed of "Hardline Unionism" (TUV etc), "Paramilitary Unionism" (UDP, PUP etc), "Independent Unionism" (McCartney, Dixon, Hermon, Connor etc) and "Mainland Unionism" (Tories, UKIP, BNP etc). Individually each of these groupings might be small, but collectively they must amount to several percentage points at each election.

Moreover, the impact of Alliance voters in any Referendum cannot be discounted. At worst*, they will split along the lines of the rest of NI - say 53% to 47%?. But at best*, they will come down more heavily in favour of the Union. My reasoning behind this is threefold:
1. I get the impression that Alliance generally poll better in Unionist-majority areas than Nationalist-majority (see, eg, Naomi Wide in East Belfast);
2. The Alliance Party is already tacitly "pro-Union", in the sense that it accepts the status quo;
3. Alliance voters are more prosperous/middle-class than average and so would be risking more, in material terms at least, by taking a leap into the unknown of a UI.

Of course, I am open to correction by anyone who analyses the figures for "Others" more closely, but should such voters be either completely "agnostic" on the subject, or even if they split 50/50 over it, the Nationalist vote would still not be big enough to hit the magic 50%+1 mark.

Nor do I see any sign of that changing in the foreseeable future - quite the contrary, in fact.


* - From a Unionist point of view

Hi EG, I haven't had time either to go into detail on my reading of those figures: I'm having a problem with a little devil called "Bonjour DNS Responder Services" and he is mucking up my Internet connectivity big time.
I'll have another go tomorrow and either he goes or I do. That, incidentally, won't be my decision to make. Background noises are starting to increase in pitch and frequency and they don't augur well for my immediate well-being. 
My connection has been intermittent since early yesterday morning and I haven't been able to post my own analysis.
But from what I read into the figures, I broadly agree with you.
I can't see the Yes vote going over 45% and I think the birth rate in the 'Green' areas is at the point where it is, or soon will be, slowing down. Going by the five stage population cycle that demographers love to waffle about, I'd imagine that the Nationalist community in NI will soon experience a convergence between the birth and death rates—as the Unionist community has been experiencing for some time.
That's not to say there won't be a Yes vote in a future UI poll but I can't see it happening in the foreseeable future. 

[bennydorano]

There's no chance of a yes vote in NI this side of 2050, if SF continue to push for one I think they'd get a nasty suprise and could do themselves some serious Electoral harm, but i suspect it's shite talk anyway as the various elections approach and they know full well what way a vote would go. 

I'd like to see a bit more effort put into any potential vote anyway as to what exactly is being asked what would we expect from 'New Ireland' institutions - I (like most Unionists  I'd imagine) wouldn't merely want to see a subsumation of NI by the ROI, I'd want the creation of new Police forces, Civil Service, form of Government etc...

[Maguire01]

The number of RC's versus Prods has been increasing throughout this Century.

The number of Nationalist voters (versus Unionist voters, that is) has not.

Therefore until Nationalism can address that weakness, it will make no progress.

Assuming the increase is at least partly due to difference in birth rates, you'll surely have to wait a number of years until such changes filter through to the ballot box. After all, the voting age is 18.

[mylestheslasher]

I'm not going to analyse the stats as I don't know enough about them but i have 2 points.

1) Could people who left the north and moved to the south move back up to vote in a referendum.

2) Some here say it could happen in 2050, maybe its 2100 but it seems it is likely to happen at some stage. Would unionist not be better off making a deal now with the south ensuring more power and better representation for their people instead of waiting until they are in a position of weakness? Unionists could surely get some better concessions now with regards to identity, citizenship or whatever else.

[Evil Genius]

I'd like to see a bit more effort put into any potential vote anyway as to what exactly is being asked what would we expect from 'New Ireland' institutions - I (like most Unionists  I'd imagine) wouldn't merely want to see a subsumation of NI by the ROI, I'd want the creation of new Police forces, Civil Service, form of Government etc...

Yep.

If there was to be a UI, I believe Unionists would accept it peacefully* on two conditions:
(a ) That it was arrived at following a 50%+1 vote in a referendum in NI, without coercion or manipulation etc by others;
(b ) That in creating a "New Ireland", we would start out with a blank sheet and work from there.

Whatever else, it would not be acceptable if it were to be predicated on the basis outlined by Gerry Adams, in a speech he made in 1994:
"Unionists are an Irish national minority, a religio/political minority, with minority rights not majority ones. Unionists can have no veto of British government policy or Irish government policy either for that matter."


* - I was gratified to see how paltry support for SF was in the last election in the ROI. If Unionists thought there was any chance of being delivered into a UI where Adams & Co had any significant control over their future, I would expect that, in the words of Randolph Churchill a century ago, "Ulster Will Fight - and Ulster Will Be Right!"