evidence: What is it about passionate nationalists that when they get less than a third of people in favour of their nationalist project, they still insist they are driving on to victory? That was the situation according to the second big Irish Times/Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South(ARINS) poll on Irish unity earlier this month, which showed 51% of those polled in Northern Ireland in favour of remaining in the UK (up 1% from last year) against 30% in favour of joining the Republic (up 3%).1 [In 2019 Catalan nationalists went so far as to declare independence after 39.5% of registered voters in a low turn-out voted in favour in an unconstitutional referendum]. [...] None of this stopped the political scientists overseeing the poll, led by Professor Brendan O’Leary of the University of Pennsylvania (an avowed nationalist), wheeling out the concept of ‘losers’ consent’: extraordinarily, the ‘losers’ in this case are the Northern Protestants who make up the great bulk of the majority who want to stay part of the UK (51% support) and the ‘consent’ is their willingness to acquiesce in an eventual united Ireland (30% support).