UK Tory minister Steve Baker's suggestion of a supermajority requirement for a border poll in Northern Ireland sparks debate and is later dismissed by the Northern Ireland Secretary.
Northern Ireland Office minister Steve Baker addresses the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly at the K Club, Kildare
Anyway, the fox had fun for a couple of days before it met its demise at the hands of Baker’s ministerial boss, the Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris.committee chair whether he could “shoot a fox that started running around earlier this week which has caused some consternation. That fox is the super-majority retrofit”, Heaton-Harris replied: “Yes is the obvious answer – I can absolutely shoot it. The comments should not be considered any shift in government policy.
But it does beg the question what a UK minister was doing freelancing his own opinions on the need for a supermajority. And the irony of a staunch Brexiteer lecturing anyone else on how to conduct constitutional referendums won’t have been lost on many, perhaps even Baker himself, who at least had the self-awareness to cite the shambolic aftermath of the 2016 vote to leave the EU as one of his motives for proposing change.
Having come far closer than they thought they would to losing in 2014, there have been various outriders among the ranks of Unionist politicians and commentators floating this idea or that about how indyref2 should be subjected to any number of conditions, caveats and criteria. Supermajorities, turnout requirements and the like have variously been bandied about.
Scotland has no such enshrined right to a referendum. But it does have something which is, arguably, even stronger – namely the weight of political, electoral and democratic precedent. For as long as that right remains largely theoretical, it is less of an issue. But what happens if, and perhaps when, inexorable political and demographic trends mean the ability to resist an Irish border poll, as outlined in the Good Friday terms, is severely tested? What is then said to Scotland, if a pro-independence, pro-referendum majority remains in place here? It’s in this light that Baker’s comments need to be seen – so much easier to hold the line in both places if the dice are loaded.
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