Actually making united Ireland a reality based on a majority of 51% would be 'exceptionally difficult' says co-creator of Good Friday Agreement

Sir Reg Empey, a former UUP leader who worked hand-in-hand with David Trimble to forge the 1998 treaty, was speaking amid a backlash against the DUP over proposals for how a referendum on unity would work in reality.

DUP MP Ian Paisley has this week suggested that, instead of allowing re-unification on the basis of a 51% / 49% vote (or something similarly slender), there should be a requirement that a greater majority must be attained for the result to take effect.

For example, the requirement could be 55% / 45%, or 60% / 40% – an outcome known as a “supermajority”.

Mr Paisley introduced a bill to that effect to the House of Commons on Tuesday, November 8.

Called simply the ‘Referendums (Supermajority) Bill’, no finished text of the bill is yet available, and there are virtually no specifics yet.

Parliament describes it merely as “a bill to require a supermajority of votes in favour of a proposal for constitutional change on which a referendum is being held”.

Speaking on the Nolan Show this morning, Mr Paisley said: “You can’t just have a crisis that moves a divided territory into another divided territory.

"Therefore, to do that, let’s have a conversation, let’s have a protection in law that makes sure that the overwhelming majority of people are agreed on change.

"This is not a new thing. In 1979 there was a protection put in that a particular majority would be used in the then Scottish referendum.”

In the case of that Scottish vote, which was about setting up a devolved assembly, the proposal failed because it required the backing of 40% of the registered electorate (in other words, not 40% of ALL VOTES CAST, but 40% of all those ELIGIBLE to cast votes – a target it fell far short of).

When it comes to possibile re-unification, the Good Friday Agreement talks repeatedly in terms only of “a majority” of the population, without specifying a particular percentage.

For instance, Annex A says this: “It is hereby declared that Northern Ireland in its entirety remains part of the UK, and shall not cease to be so without the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland voting in a poll”.

Back in 1998, when Northern Ireland was preparing to vote Yes or No to the Good Friday Agreement, David Trimble said that – regardless of whether he technically won the referendum – the hard politicial realities on the ground meant that if less than 70% of people backed the deal, it could be unworkable.

"Over 70% we're safe," he was quoted as saying in the Washington Post.

In the end, just over 71% of those who voted backed the deal.

Asked today if Irish unity could work on the basis of a 51% majority of Northern Irish voters backing it, he said: “I think it’d be exceptionally difficult.

"The idea that you get a vote like that and everybody walks into the sunset, it just won’t be like that.”

He sounded a particular note of caution over a “Sinn Fein-style” reunification, adding that: “I think the Republic is a homogenous state….

"They just want to rigidly pretend that the republic, instead of being 26 counties, is 32, and everybody carries on as if nothing has happened.”

He also said that whilst it is "perfectly legitimate” for people to consider changing the Good Friday Agreement, altering one part of the agreement risks re-opening the whole of the deal, and “there’d be no end to the stuff people want to put on the table”.

For unionists in particular, “the record of changes so far is not a good one” he said, citing the St Andrews amendments in particular (pushed through by the DUP and Sinn Fein) as a major mistake.

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