The EU referendum in Northern Ireland: good Europeans or sectarian politics as usual?

Despite the potential for a more pro-European electorate, attitudes to the EU have been subsumed into the Catholic-Protestant divide like most other political divisions in the province, argues James Dennison. Whereas pro-Europeanism can be predicted in Great Britain by age, wealth and education, in Northern Ireland religious identification is the only statistically significant predictor of voting to leave or remain. This evidence adds weight to increased academic consensus in recent years that attitudes to the EU are formed along identity lines, rather than economic interest.