Ireland could be united within decade, say voters

Survey reveals majority feel North will quit the Union in future poll

FEARS that Northern Ireland will eventually vote to quit the United Kingdom are laid bare in a poll published today.

The survey, for pollster and Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, reveals that a clear majority would to opt to stay in the Union if a referendum were held now. However, just one in three Northern Irish voters believe that would be the outcome if a socalled ‘border poll’ is held in ten years’ time.

And Lord Ashcroft warns that ‘in Northern Ireland, politics is played for the long term, and with that in mind few are resting easy on the Unionist side’.

Based on interviews with 3,301 people, the poll records that if a vote were held tomorrow, most people would vote not to join the Republic by 54 per cent to 46 per cent (excluding ‘don’t knows’).

The pollster describes the result as a ‘welcome early Christmas gift for Unionists’. He adds: ‘In a similar survey two years ago, I found a wafer-thin margin for Ulster to join the Republic in a united Ireland.’

He warns that as in Scotland, ‘ideals of national identity’ are being ‘edged aside’ by a focus on ‘practicalities like public services and living costs’ – but that in the longer term, most voters predict a different outcome in a border poll.

He writes: ‘Most voters expect a referendum or border poll within the next decade, and while the majority believe the province would vote to remain tomorrow, only one in three think this would be the outcome in ten years.’

Factors for such a change of heart include ‘simple demographics’, with one Catholic boasting ‘we breed better’ than the Unionists.

However, the peer warns that Brexit is also an issue, with more than one in five voters saying that leaving the EU ‘has made them question their support for the province remaining part of the UK’.

The results come amid a continuing row over the Government proposing an effective amnesty for both terrorists and British Army veterans to draw a line under prosecutions from the Troubles.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis was last week forced to postpone plans to bring legislation forward amid reports Defence Secretary Ben Wallace believed plans were unfair to military veterans.

A senior Ministry of Defence source dismissed the claims yesterday as speculation, adding that the Government was ‘committed to finding a solution’.