Tag Archives: Irish border poll

Northern Ireland: challenges for the next Westminster government 

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A new report from the Constitution Unit, Northern Ireland: Challenges for the Next Westminster Government, is published today. It sets out the challenges in Northern Ireland that will face a new government at Westminster, of whatever complexion, and urges a distinctly new approach. Here the author, Alan Whysall, Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Unit, introduces the report. 

The Northern Ireland political institutions resumed in February, and Northern Ireland has attracted predictably little attention in the rest of the UK since. The manifestos of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties contained little about Northern Ireland to surprise. 

Today’s new report suggests that Northern Ireland needs much sensitivity and some priority in London, however, among all the other problems the new government will need to deal with, including at times attention from Number 10. 

We cannot assume that the Agreement settlement is now back on the right path 

It should not be assumed that the institutions established under the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement are guaranteed to function stably after the election. There is still discontent within the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) over the deal that took the party back into government, and its support is down following that deal, and the abrupt departure from politics of its champion, former party leader Jeffrey Donaldson. Several DUP seats are too close to call in this election, including that of the new leader Gavin Robinson. 

Even if the institutions do survive, however, they are liable to be hindered, perhaps gravely, by continuing controversy over EU issues. 

Nor should it be assumed – as has often been the case in recent years – that if the institutions are in being, all is well with the wider Belfast/Good Friday Agreement settlement. 

The institutions have often delivered poor government, with difficult decisions repeatedly dodged. That is one of the reasons behind the financial crisis that has bitten Northern Ireland already, and is liable to return; and behind acute problems in the public services. 

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‘Taking the border out of politics’ – the Northern Ireland referendum of March 1973

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In 1973, the UK government organised the country’s first referendum, on the subject of whether or not Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK. Now, as Brexit and its potential consequences make another border poll look like an increasing possibility, David Torrance looks back on the poll, its background, and its later constitutional significance.

Introduction 

The first constitutional referendum in the history of the United Kingdom took place on 8 March 1973. It was held nearly four years after the beginning of ‘The Troubles’ – a sharp deterioration in the security and political situation in Northern Ireland. 

What became known as the ‘border poll’ (although it was also called a ‘referendum’ or ‘plebiscite’, no one could quite agree on terminology) emerged as a means by which to ‘take the border out of politics’, or so it was hoped. In discussions with the Government of Northern Ireland (NIG) on 22 March 1972, the UK government proposed transferring responsibility for law and order from Belfast to London, phasing out internment, and periodic plebiscites.

The last two were, in principle, acceptable to the NIG, but an erosion of its ‘transferred’ powers under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was not. The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (Brian Faulkner) and his Cabinet later resigned, and on 30 March the Parliament of Northern Ireland – known as ‘Stormont’ – was prorogued and Direct Rule from Westminster introduced for the first time since 1921.

The referendum announcement

Speaking in the Commons on 24 March 1972, Prime Minister Edward Heath said:

‘We… propose in due course to invite Parliament to provide for a system of regular plebiscites in Northern Ireland about the Border, the first to be held as soon as practicable in the near future and others at intervals of a substantial period of years thereafter.’

In effect, Heath was proposing to transfer the principle of ‘consent’ from the prorogued Parliament of Northern Ireland (enshrined in the Ireland Act 1949) to its people, ‘the Border’ representing a proxy for a much broader constitutional question.  Continue reading →