Politics of Northern Ireland
Reserved matters are a list of policy areas (such as civil aviation, units of measurement, and human genetics), which the Westminster Parliament may devolve to the Northern Ireland Assembly at some time in future.
There is also a small minority of Ulster nationalists (those who want an independent Northern Irish state), whose religious convictions vary.
However, a spokesman for Taoiseach Bertie Ahern later rowed back, stating that it had never been intended that the MPs have a right to attend plenary sessions of the Dáil, but that they would be invited to participate in Oireachtas committees dealing with Northern Ireland matters, and only if there was all-party agreement behind it.
[3][4] Nonetheless, on 22 November 2007, representatives from both Sinn Féin and the SDLP, (unionists declined the invitation) attended a meeting of the Oireachtas committee reviewing the workings of the Good Friday Agreement.
The DUP are a more complex mixture than the other major parties, combining support from rural evangelicals and urban, secular, working-class voters.
The DUP have grown in support in recent years as they were originally the only major party to oppose the Good Friday Agreement, although until September 2015 they were part of a government operating it.
Similarly, on the nationalist side of the political spectrum, Sinn Féin has overtaken the traditionally dominant SDLP in recent elections.
Traditionally the party of the urban Catholic working-class and a number of republican rural areas, since the IRA ceasefires of the mid-1990s; it has expanded its base considerably and has overtaken the long-dominant SDLP in terms of vote share.
The party has members who wish to follow an agenda focusing primarily on "bread and butter issues" (taxation, employment, education, health, etc.)
Age has a strong impact on party choice: the more radical Sinn Féin has more support among young voters than the SDLP has.
The most important factor is attachment to nationalist ideology: Sinn Féin has high levels of support among people strongly committed to nationalism[6] Among the cross-community parties, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland draws its support from all over Northern Ireland.
Fianna Fáil, the second-largest party in the Republic, opened a cumann (branch) in Derry, and began recruiting at Queen's University Belfast.
The leadership as of 2005[update] had decided not to take part in electoral politics in Northern Ireland; however, in the latter part of 2007 the Taoiseach said his party was consulting its grassroots on the possibility of contesting elections in the North, and that in advance of this Fianna Fáil had registered as a political party in Northern Ireland.
Up to now, these have been one-off events, which have occurred periodically throughout Northern Ireland's history without setting a trend—cf Sir Denis Henry in the early part of the 20th century.
In any event, social class is an important part of competition within the main ethnic political blocs,[citation needed] and class-based party structures in other established democracies have weakened since the end of the Cold War.
The anticipated Catholic plurality is based on the assumption that the current trends of demographic change will continue, but at a slower rate than previously.
The "Protestant and other Christian" category includes groups such as Quakers that are not associated with either Unionism or Republicanism in Northern Ireland.
According to a 2018 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey carried out by Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, 62% supported remaining part of the United Kingdom via devolved government or direct rule, with support for leaving the UK and forming a united Ireland at 19%.
The proportion of Protestants in the study who wished to join the Republic was 5%, with 83% preferring to remain in the United Kingdom in some form.
[20] There are also considerable numbers of people who give ambiguous answers to questions about the future constitutional status of Northern Ireland.
Voters may also perceive voting to be about strengthening the hand of their section of the community within Northern Ireland, or about gaining advantage for their social class.
In 2016 an Ipsos Mori poll asked "If there was a referendum on the border would you:" and responses sorted by national identity were as follows:[28] A 1997 publication by Democratic Dialogue financed by the Central Community Relations Unit of the Northern Ireland Office stated, "It is clear that many in Northern Ireland are willing to tolerate the Other's cultural identity only within the confines of their own core ideology... most nationalists have extreme difficulty in accepting unionists' Britishness or, even if they do, the idea that unionists do not constitute an Irish ethnic minority which can ultimately be accommodated within the Irish nation."
