Get the popcorn out. These three elections will be big

We’ve looked back on 2015. Now let’s look to 2016 and three big votes that could define the year ahead.

EU Referendum

Before 2017. Sometime this year?

David Cameron’s a man in a hurry. He’s already ruled out serving another term and has pledged to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union before the end of 2017. He has every reason to hold the referendum sooner rather than later. For one thing, many Conservative MPs are never going to be satisfied with whatever deal he manages to secure from Brussels. Why prolong internal divisions? For another, it is likely that February’s meeting of the European Council will be decisive. This is when all the leaders of the EU’s 28 member states will come together and take a decision on Cameron’s reform proposals.

Make no mistake about it, this referendum is going to be huge. It’s not just a normal election when we choose who governs us. It’s a fundamental question about how we will be governed for at least a generation. The result won’t just affect citizens of the UK, but it will influence the direction of an entity in which half a billion people live.

As things stand, the vote could easily go either way. A YouGov poll in December found that 41 percent want to remain in the EU, and another 41 percent want to leave (the rest don’t know). The numbers change pretty dramatically when respondents are told to imagine the outcome of the Prime Minister’s renegotiation. If Cameron secures ‘major’ changes, 50 percent would vote to remain while 23 percent would vote to leave. If he secures no real changes, only 32 percent would vote to stay while 46 percent would vote to leave. These volatile numbers tell a crucial story: the UK’s membership of the EU really is on the line.

Whether or not Mr Cameron is able to return from Brussels in February with a list of substantive reforms will be pivotal. If he succeeds in his reform mission, the Prime Minister will have done more to strengthen the UK’s long-term place in Europe than most of his predecessors. If he fails, the public certainly won’t pretend that it didn’t notice. At the last European Council meeting in December, it was reported that Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny warned other leaders, “David Cameron is asking for our help and we should give it to him.” If they don’t want to take the UK’s membership for granted, they should listen to him. It could all go either way.

Big question: Will the EU’s 27 other leaders agree to major reforms, or will they leave Mr Cameron empty-handed? Know this, and we will likely know the referendum result.

Northern Ireland Assembly Election

5 May 2016. TBC.

OK, this one might not exactly fit with the headline – at least at first sight. Northern Ireland has a dysfunctional government that nobody really likes, but yet the result of the 2016 Assembly election is unlikely to look much different to that of 2011. The most recent poll was published by LucidTalk in November. It found that 26 percent of voters intend to give the DUP their first preference, with Sinn Féin on 25 percent, the Ulster Unionists on 15 percent, the SDLP on 11 percent, and Alliance on 8 percent. This would indicate a slight dip in support on 2011 for all parties except the Ulster Unionists, but the five main parties would all still emerge in the same order of strength in terms of Assembly seats.

There have been some important developments since that particular poll. Arlene Foster has replaced Peter Robinson as leader of the DUP and First Minister. The DUP can expect to lose a few seats in May, but it is possible that a change in leadership will prevent much significant haemorrhaging. Meanwhile, the youthful Colum Eastwood has replaced Alasdair MacDonnell as leader of the SDLP. The SDLP will face an uphill struggle to hold on to some seats, especially those of members who were elected as the fifth or sixth MLA of a six-seat constituency. Eastwood has no time to waste over the next four months as he tries to convince voters that the SDLP still has a purpose. It’s a difficult, but not impossible, task.

If there were to be any real shock in May it would be that Sinn Féin would overtake the DUP for the first time in an Assembly election. Martin McGuinness would be First Minister, and Arlene Foster (assuming that she wouldn’t resign at the result) would become Deputy First Minister. It’s still an unlikely scenario, but shouldn’t be dismissed – especially if the Ulster Unionists do manage to make a serious dent in some of the DUP’s strongest constituencies and if DUP voters are significantly less motivated to turn out to vote than Sinn Féin voters. Should this scenario transpire, however, it must be asked: What difference would it actually make?

This brings me to why the 2016 Assembly election has the potential to be ‘big’. When it comes to the parties that comprise our government in Northern Ireland, May’s election will make no difference whatsoever. The Ulster Unionists, it should be acknowledged, withdrew from the Executive in September in protest at revelations that an IRA Army Council still exists. After May’s election, and particularly if it gains a ministerial portfolio, Mike Nesbitt may well decide to re-enter the Executive. He would be wrong to do so, just as the SDLP and Alliance would be wrong to retake their seats in the Executive. In December both parties’ ministers voted against the Executive’s own Budget. They should realise that they would serve the people of Northern Ireland far better from outside the Executive than from within. That would be big. That would be a game-changer.

At a time when just 11 percent of the public are satisfied with the Assembly, and 66 percent are dissatisfied, the parties that go on to form Northern Ireland’s next government will almost certainly be exactly the same ones that took office after the last election. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The result of Election Day may be boringly familiar, but if the UUP, SDLP and Alliance find some courage and common purpose the day after, then it might be worth getting the popcorn out after all.

Big question: Will the smaller parties find the courage to take a risk and challenge the larger parties of the Executive by forming an effective opposition instead?

US Presidential Election

8 November 2016

If anything could make Northern Ireland politics look vaguely ‘normal’, it’s the 2016 race for the White House. Election campaigns in America almost always tend to be a bit more entertaining than just about anywhere else, but this race really is unprecedented – even by US standards.

Just look at the Republican field. When Donald Trump emerged as the frontrunner over the summer, it was supposed to be just a phase. Republican voters were apparently flirting with the more exciting and dynamic personality of Trump, before reluctantly falling behind the more sensible choice of Jeb Bush. We had seen this in 2012. Republican voters had passing flings with Texas Governor Rick Perry, pizza mogul Herman Cain, and the outspoken Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. They all had their moments in the spotlight, but never for too long. Ultimately Republican voters chose Mitt Romney as the nominee. He lost the only vote that really mattered, of course, to President Obama. But if any of the 2012 Republican field had a realistic chance of beating the sitting president, it was going to be Romney.

Now reverse the logic. In 2016, if any of the Republican contenders has a good chance of getting beaten by Hillary Clinton, it is Donald Trump. At least that’s what the rules say for now, but he’s broken just about all the others so far. There are two key reasons for this ‘Trump effect’. The first is that he’s got a lot of money (as if we could forget). This means that whatever he says, whatever he does, whoever he offends, he never has to worry about campaign donations drying up. He has an endless list of faults, but being in the pockets of interest groups is not one of them. The only interest group to which Donald Trump answers is Donald Trump.

The first reason is unique to Donald Trump as a candidate. The second is much more fundamental, and reflects the deeper phenomenon of American politics in 2016: America is deeply, deeply polarized. It’s ironic to think that America thought it was polarised in the 70s. Then it thought it was polarised in the 80s. Then it thought it got even more polarised in the 90s. And here we are today. It’s not just that Republicans and Democrats agree less, but also that they disagree more intensely than ever before. They’re less and less two parties competing against each other for votes; more and more they have come represent two very different Americas.

Democrats tend to be the most optimistic. They may not be entirely happy with their country as it is, but they have reason to be fairly relaxed about the way it’s headed: Obamacare becomes harder to reverse by the day, same-sex marriage has been legalised in all fifty states, and the President has just taken executive action to (albeit marginally) strengthen gun control. Many Republicans, on the other hand, feel under attack. They’re not happy with contemporary America, and Democrats represent everything they think is wrong with it. In 1994, 17 percent of Republicans viewed Democrats “very unfavourably.” In 2004, this rose slightly to 21 percent. By 2014, it had surged to 43 percent. And 36 percent had come to regard Democrats as an outright “threat to the nation’s well-being.”

America’s polarisation problem hasn’t arrived overnight. It’s grown and deepened over decades – even centuries. Ironically for the Republicans who turn to Donald Trump to ‘make America great again’, they are essentially making it easier for Hillary Clinton to reap victory in November. She represents the half of the country that thinks America is already pretty great, and that it can be greater still. And when you do the math, it’s the bigger half.

Big question: The campaign’s likely to get uglier before it gets better. Whoever wins the presidency in November, will they have what it takes to start bringing together a deeply polarised nation?

Some other elections to look out for:

• Irish General Election (no later than 8 April); in this symbolic centenary year, will Sinn Féin have the chance to enter government in the South? Or will the other parties do everything they can to make the coalition arithmetic work without it?
• Scottish Parliament Election (5 May); the SNP look set to hold on to their majority, but who will emerge as their official opposition: Labour or the Conservatives?
• London Mayoral Election (5 May); will Zac Goldsmith be maverick enough to keep London blue, or will Labour’s Sadiq Khan return it to Labour control?
• Hong Kong Legislative Election (September 2016, estimated); after mass protests in 2014, will voters regard the result as legitimate?
• Various sate and local elections in Germany; will they bring forward Angela Merkel’s departure as German Chancellor?
• Russian Legislative Election (18 September); will any serious opposition present a meaningful challenge to Putin’s United Russia?
• Australian Federal Election (before 14 January 2017); after a ruthless coup last year, will Malcolm Turnbull call a snap election to secure a fresh mandate in 2016?