Editorial: Gavin Robinson is right to point out the lack of progress towards an all Ireland

Morning View

​Unionism faces many challenges at the moment.

Sinn Fein, while it is rejected by 70% of voters, is nonetheless the largest party in Northern Ireland, a country that it does not want to exist.

The republican party spends so much of its energy trying to bring that about, yet it must be in power at all times.​ More widely, unionism is not fashionable at a time of ‘woke’ ideas that are so prevalent among younger people, and so readily embraced by many institutions.

Few people seem to want to defend unionism, probably largely because it is unfashionable, and often unionist politicians and commentators fail to speak out clearly in a unionist way, perhaps thinking that such reticence will win support among non unionists.

The demography of Northern Ireland is changing, as it has been since the country’s foundation. While this is not happening as rapidly as some nationalists gleefully say, it is nonetheless happening gradually.

And then Brexit has alienated a tier of people who might otherwise have been keen to stay in the United Kingdom, or if not keen then didn’t think about the matter very much and were happy with the status quo.

But there is a danger in assuming that the game is up. Sometimes unionists seem only to seek assurances that their identity will be respected in an all Ireland – an assurance that republicans, who tired to murder their way to such an outcome, are all too willing to give. But as the latter well know, unionism is finished in the event of a vote for an all Ireland, and there would be no going back.

Gavin Robinson is thus right in an interview today to cut through the gloom and point out how little progress there has been towards NI leaving the UK. The nationalist share of the vote has not increased in 25 years and polling on a border poll consistently shows hefty majority support for remaining in the Union.

This is no time to panic into accepting Sinn Fein’s inevitability claims.