By Faha
In the recent LucidTalk poll there was a question on a United Ireland referendum. Voters were asked if they would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom or if they would vote to be part of a United Ireland. The results from a weighted sample of 2555 voters were:
Part of the United Kingdom 48.57%
Part of a United Ireland 42.35%
Undecided 9.08%
The breakdown by religious background was:
Catholic
Part of the United Kingdom 6.5%
Part of a United Ireland 84.8%
Undecided 8.7 %
Protestant
Part of the United Kingdom 91%
Part of a United Ireland 4.6%
Undecided 4.4%
None/Other
Part of the United Kingdom 36.5%
Part of a United Ireland 44.8%
Undecided 18.7%
The results were also analyzed by which party the voter choose in the 2017 Assembly election. Not surprisingly those who voted for nationalist parties are 88% for a United Ireland and those who voted for unionist parties are 94% for remaining part of the UK
For Alliance and Green voters, the results were:
Part of the United Kingdom 28.5%
Part of a United Ireland 36%
Undecided 35.5%
Only 28.5% of Alliance-Green voters would vote to remain in the UK while the remainder are equally divided among those who prefer a United Ireland or are Undecided.
Of the 9.08% of voters who are Undecided the background of those are:
Catholic 3.1%
Protestant 1.8%
Other/None 4.1%
Only 20% of all Undecided are from a Protestant background and since some of these are Alliance-Green-SDLP voters it appears that 90% or more of the Undecided voters are from the nationalist-non aligned voting pool. These are the voters that will determine the results of a United Ireland vote.
I wish to note the religious background composition of the weighted sample of 2555 voters.
Catholic 36%
Protestant 42%
Other/None 22%
You will notice that the percentage of Catholics at 36% is much lower than that recorded in the 2011 census. This would affect the results significantly.
The census office in 2011 had difficulties determining the religious background for the entire population for several reasons. Almost 160,000 people did not complete census forms and of those who replied to the census some did not answer the question on religion. Overall, there was no religion background information for 13% of the total population and the census office estimated the religion background for that 13%. As you know I did a comparison of the census data from 2011 with that of the 2011 School census. The School census had religion background information for 99% of primary and secondary school students. In 2011 approximately 44% to 45% of the population was Catholic and 44% to 45% Protestant with 1% Other and 10% None. The headline figures that received the most intention included the “Religion Brought up In” from some of the None group. Those showed a “Catholic” population of 45.1% and a “Protestant” population of 48.4%. The base numbers of those who professed a religion were approximately equal. However, “losing my religion” is more than twice as common among Protestants than Catholics which is why the Protestant figure was 3% higher than the Catholic number when including those raised in a religion.
We can be certain that in the 2021 census that the Catholic population will not be 36%. Births and deaths data and school census data indicate that it would be closer to 46% to 47%. The Protestant figure would be closer to 42%, which is the actual percentage in this poll. Of course, there has been a secular trend since 2011 so the None group will be larger and thus those indicating a religion will be smaller.
This is a theoretical result if the census indicates a Catholic population of 45%, a Protestant population of 40% and None/Other at 15%. Based on those percentages this is what a United Ireland result would be based on preferences by the different religions in this poll:
Remain part of the UK 46%
Part of United Ireland 45.5%
Undecided 8.5%
Obviously, a United Ireland poll would be very close if this is the actual religion background in the 2021 census. It is only a year from now that we will know the actual results of the census and at that time it will be possible to more accurately predict the results of a Border Poll based on the demographics in the census and opinion polls released at that time.