50%+1

In response to Andy Pollak’s piece recently, Frank Schnittger had a useful piece on Slugger. In it he makes a key point about the rhetoric around the 50%+1 GFA requirement. He states:

There has been a lot of debate below about the necessity (or otherwise) of achieving a majority for a UI far in excess of the minimal 50%+1 GFA requirement. Obviously the bigger the majority, the better, but is it necessary, and if so, how is it achievable? And if it is achievable, must it be achieved prior to, or after a border poll?

Obviously, if you wait long enough – Pollak suggested 50 years – demographic and other changes may do the job for you. But that requires the non-unionist majority to tolerate a system they don’t want for a long time longer. My suggestion is they are unwilling to do so, as the drift in support for a border poll now seems to indicate.

He continues:

So my proposals take unionist opposition to a UI before (and to a much lesser extent, after) a successful 50% +1 border poll more or less as a given, about which we can do little. We must do them the honour of respecting their position which no economic or political inducement can change in the short term.

And he argues for appealing to 20% or so ‘persuadables’ in the ‘middle of the political spectrum’ for whom the idea of a UI is not so anathema. The offer to them would be:

• A credible promise of a secure, stable, settled political future in a UI.
• Much better economic prospects in a UI.
• Protection of minority rights and identities in the new political dispensation.
• A planned, structured, well organised, agreed and legally binding transition process between Britain and Ireland which guarantees pensions, quality of life, healthcare, integrated education, social security and a programme of infrastructural development for a long transition period. There might even be provision for a second border poll ten years down the line where people will have the opportunity to change their minds if the above hasn’t been delivered to their satisfaction.

The point in a way is not to undermine the democratic power of a majority because even as it stands it is that which underpins the current dispensation. Alter that, to the benefit of unionism and it brings everything into question.That said the second border poll, perhaps a decade after the first. That seems like a recipe for indefinite instability. 

But back to 50%+1 and amending that to a larger percentage.

On paper that seems more democratic but in truth it merely tilts the democratic scales. Again, the point is not that a larger majority would not be optimal, it is that any majority is legitimate. And practically I cannot imagine that a referendum will be called without a good chance of 55% plus. None of which is to argue that a referendum will in and of itself solve all the challenges that will manifest. That’s where preparation by this state becomes absolutely essential so that there is the greatest possible degree of clarity as to what the shape of the dispensation ahead will be. That is, surely, the least that is owed to the people of this island?