Lord Alderdice:

I thank the Senator for her comments and for her question, which is in a sense a more topical question than it was 25 years ago. At the time of the Good Friday Agreement, nobody was under any illusions as to what the situation would have been had there been a border poll. The overwhelming majority of people would have voted to stay in the UK with better relations with the Republic of Ireland institutionalised through the Good Friday Agreement and so on. It is a very different situation altogether 25 years on. It is becoming an increasingly difficult and more complicated one for a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Does a Secretary of State look at opinion polls over a period of time? Does a Secretary of State look at the support for political parties or for the number of MLAs in a new assembly after an election? It is not an easy one.

I remember talking to a friend a few years ago who was a strong supporter of the SDLP.

We were talking about how the situation was and I joked with her and said, "Well, you are going to get what you want". When she asked what I was talking about, I said, "You are going to get a united Ireland; I do not know exactly when, but that is the direction things are going in quite clearly". When she said she did not want a united Ireland, I asked her to wait a minute because she had always told me that she voted for the SDLP. She said "Oh yes, but I don't actually want a united Ireland", and I replied, "I'm sorry, but you're going to end up getting it because that's what you voted for". I think we have to recognise when we count up the votes that go to political parties that there may not be exactly the same support for some of the parties' leading policies in a referendum that there appears to be if you just count up their votes. It is a bit of a complicated one. My view is that the Secretary of State, whoever it happens to be, should not put themselves in a position where they appear to be, as is the case in Scotland at the moment, resisting a border poll. I think they should make it clear that they are open to it. As it becomes clearer that that is the trajectory, they should sit down to talk to people about it and try to get a bit of a sense of the situation. Everybody then will need to be careful that they might get what they asked for, and that they might not necessarily want it. Rather than a simple formula, I think it is a bit more complex than that. It is an important decision for the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State and the British Government should not allow themselves to get into a position where they look as though they are resisting it for any reason other than that manifestly there is no support for it and that is an obvious thing.

The position on Scotland is a difficult one because there has already been a referendum, and you cannot have a referendum every ten minutes. The British Government looks as though it is standing in the way of it. I do not think that is a good place for it to be. I do not think that would be in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.