Drumcree poll finds narrow majority backs Chris Bryant’s parade ban

A poll reported by RTÉ on 28 October found that 53% of respondents in Northern Ireland thought Secretary of State Chris Bryant was right to block an Orange Order parade along Garvaghy Road in Portadown. The narrow majority comes after a stand-off over a route the Parades Commission had permitted for the first time in 28 years.

The More in Common survey questioned 1,019 adults online after Bryant intervened on 9 October, RTÉ reported. The same share of respondents, 53%, said the Parades Commission had been wrong to approve the march. The findings describe respondents’ views of the decisions; they do not settle the dispute over the route.

How opinion divides over the Garvaghy Road march

The Irish Times reported that 38% of respondents sympathised more with Garvaghy Road residents, compared with 21% who favoured the Portadown Orangemen; 41% took neither side. Among Protestants, 44% chose neither side and 42% sympathised more with the Orangemen. Those answers show that opposition to the ban and sympathy for the marchers were not identical positions in the poll.

Avoiding violence draws wider agreement

Despite those divisions, 82% said it mattered to them that the Drumcree stand-off end without violence, according to The Irish Times. The report said this priority extended across religious and political groups and among people who sided with either the Orange Order or residents. It identified one resolution acceptable to voters of every party: confirming the Orange Lodge’s right to parade, with the lodge then choosing not to exercise it.

The commission had allowed the march to take place on 27 September, but residents opposed it and a two-week stand-off followed. Bryant blocked the route on 9 October after talks failed to produce an agreement, according to reporting carried by The Standard. A judicial review challenging his intervention and the role of PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher was awaiting judgment on 28 October; the expected ruling was a separate development from the poll.

What the poll says about Stormont politics

The Irish Times reported that Sinn Féin’s voting intention rose from 25% in More in Common’s July poll to 30% in October, while the DUP moved from 17% to 18%. On whether Drumcree justified a party leaving the Stormont Executive, 49% said it was not a strong enough reason and 27% said it was. Those figures put the parade dispute in a wider political context without establishing that it caused the change in party support.