OPINION polls are bad for your mental health. Where there is doubt they claim certainty, where there is growth they exaggerate, and where there is clear thinking they quickly scramble it.
Last week two organisations, Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South (ARINS), along with the Irish Times, published their findings on how people felt about the idea of a united Ireland. Which was a core mistake, and one which tens of thousands of people across the water could have saved them from.
The Brexit referendum campaign in 2014 was filled with ignorance, deceit and sometimes blatant lies. Passions surged and clashed, and people were promised everything from sunny uplands and unfettered freedom to a side-of-bus commitment to £350 million a week for the NHS. With a rush of blood to the head, the British people made for the polls and put their mark down in favour of this glorious future. Ever since they’ve been biting their lips and trying not to kick themselves for stupidly voting with a blindfold on their eyes.
If you’re going to have a poll, you have to know what it is you’re voting for. Nobody at present knows what a united Ireland would look like. Most unionists see it as a take-over of the North by the South of Ireland; others a takeover by the EU. Nobody knows whether it will be a federal system, with Stormont remaining in place but with the political headquarters resting in Dublin; or a federation with assemblies in Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Galway. What sort of health system would a united Ireland have, what sort of education system? How (if at all) would unionist identity as British be managed in a new Ireland?
And yet the ARINS/Irish Times poll has no such doubts or questions. 'Do you think there should be referendums?' they ask. No hint given as to when these referendums might be held, what question or questions would be asked. 'How would you vote in a referendum?' it demands, without explaining when the referendum might take place, what sort of question or questions it would pose. Then there is the list of options: 'Almost impossible to accept’; 'Not happy but could live with it’; ‘Happily accept’; and finally that forlorn infant ‘Don’t know’.
Paradoxically, it’s the ‘Don’t know’ which would be the most sensible category into which you should put your mark, since how could you know how you’d feel about acceptance or rejection of something you don’t know much about?
Last week also there was on RTÉ report about Casement Park. There were of course NEI supporters who said they’d never darken the turnstile of a renovated Casement Park no matter who their team was playing in the Euros; others said they’d have no problem about going to West Belfast (one enterprising shopkeeper said he’d sell them flags and emblems for waving about if they wanted them). Almost as a throwaway line, it said that the Euros would take place in 2028.
Which date is some five years from now. There might well be no such entity as ‘Northern Ireland’ in 2028. But the RTÉ programme makers didn’t bother their heads with such an idea.
Here’s the thing. Every time we have an opinion poll with dumb questions like ‘If a UI poll were held tomorrow, how would you vote?’, that opinion poll, intentionally or unintentionally, is nudging people into voting to stay in the UK. Why do I say that? Well, if you were standing in the dark and someone suggested you take a bold step forward, you’d be very foolish to listen to them – that step could for all you know send you plummeting down a cliff-side or a mine-shaft. So of course you’ll opt to stay where you are, however cold or exposed you feel.
A word of advice: any time you see such an opinion poll about a UI, hold the paper aloft and scream ‘A citizens' assembly first!' before setting fire to the miserable rag.
