Voters want Stormont fixed, not felled, survey finds as priorities diverge from politicians

Northern Ireland's voters want their devolved institutions mended rather than scrapped, according to a substantial new survey that lays bare both the public's commitment to power-sharing and its frustration with the politicians who run it.

The research, carried out by the University of Liverpool's Institute of Irish Studies for the Sunday Times, found a 40-point gap between those who would punish a party for collapsing Stormont and those who would tolerate it.

Some 55.2 per cent of respondents said they would refuse to support any party that brought down the assembly, against just 14 per cent who would accept it, a finding that cuts across the traditional divide.

A cross-community consensus

The support for keeping the institutions running spans the constitutional divide. Among nationalists, 62.5 per cent oppose any party that would cause a collapse, while 56.2 per cent of all voters regard the current or a reformed Stormont as the best basis for governing the region.

Even among the growing bloc of voters who identify as neither unionist nor nationalist, roughly 30 per cent of the electorate, only 8.3 per cent would accept institutional collapse.

The clear message, researchers said, is that the public wants the structures reformed so that no single party can hold the assembly hostage, rather than abandoned altogether.

Bread-and-butter priorities

Perhaps the most striking finding is the mismatch between what voters care about and what dominates political debate at Stormont.

Asked to rank their concerns, respondents put healthcare reform first on 35.4 per cent and economic issues second on 28.8 per cent, while constitutional matters languished in ninth place on just 2 per cent and legacy issues came last on 1.3 per cent.

The survey's headline numbers underline the disconnect:

• 55.2 per cent would refuse to back a party that collapsed Stormont; 14 per cent would tolerate it.
• 56.2 per cent see current or reformed Stormont structures as the best basis for governance.
• 62.5 per cent of nationalists oppose parties that would cause collapse.
• Healthcare reform topped voter priorities at 35.4 per cent, the economy second at 28.8 per cent.
• Constitutional matters ranked ninth at 2 per cent and legacy issues last at 1.3 per cent.

Pressure for reform

The findings will add weight to long-running arguments for changing the rules that allow either of the two largest designations to bring the whole executive down by withdrawing.

Reform advocates argue that the mutual veto built into the Good Friday architecture, designed to guarantee cross-community consent, has too often been used as a weapon to stall government for months or years.

“The demand from voters is straightforward: fix the institutions so no single party can hold the assembly hostage, but do not walk away from power-sharing itself.”

Background

Stormont has been suspended or collapsed repeatedly since its creation, most recently for two years until early 2024, when the DUP ended a boycott over post-Brexit trading arrangements.

Those repeated breakdowns have fuelled public weariness, and a sense that the institutions are too easily held to ransom by whichever party finds it expedient to walk out.

What happens next: the survey strengthens the hand of those pressing for procedural reform, but any change to the power-sharing rules would itself require cross-party agreement, the very thing the structures have so often struggled to produce.