A survey published in today’s Sunday Times makes for interesting reading (more details here). The top lines in the paper are..
– Two thirds of people in the north now oppose the Good Friday Agreement
– 43% of people would not mind much if the Assembly was abolished
– Only a tiny minority of each religious grouping (4% of Protestants and 2% of Catholics) say they feel unfavourably towards the other community
– Hardly any Protestants favour Irish unity but most (72%) said they would accept it if a majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to end partition.
– Just 38% of people favour Irish unity over a range of other options
– Only 3% of Catholics said they would find it “almost impossible to accept” if Irish unity never happened.
Some of it fills me with horror – for example, do 43% of people really want to be ruled by unaccountable civil servants indefinitely?
And in some places I would question the Times’ interpretation – for example, isn’t 33% of people in favour of Irish unity a pretty high figure, in the absence of any government strategy to outline the proposals or offer solutions to the real-world concerns people have (the financial, the logistical, etc etc)…
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