Editorial: Welcome comments from Keir Starmer about a border poll but Labour is still a risk

​Unionists have become used in recent years to being thankful for small mercies.

​And we had a small mercy the other day. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader, said that a border poll on the future of Northern Ireland is "not even on the horizon". Note that – not just that it is not imminent, but not even on the horizon.

Sir Keir is likely to be the next prime minister, either as the prime minister of a government with an overall majority in the House of Commons or as the leader of the largest party. Why? Because the Tories will have been in power for 14 years by the time of the general election, and no party since World War II has won after such a spell in office.

If Sir Keir finds himself at the helm of the largest party, but without a majority, it is possible that he will be reliant on unionist MPs to be able to govern. However, it is far more likely that he will need SNP support.

That is not a good scenario for unionists. Scottish separatists will demand some sort of plebiscite on the future of Scotland if they hold the balance of power.

Some years ago Sir Keir said that if there was a border poll in NI, he would campaign for the Union. It is unclear if he will stand by that but, in a gentle way, unionists need to tease out if that is still his position. His choice of Hilary Benn as shadow NI secretary was by no means the worst appointment he could have made from a unionist outlook.

The Labour Party has been bruised by Brexit. It lost a lot of northern voters to the Tories over that. They know not to seem to be unpatriotic.

At the same time, however, unionists are playing with fire if they think a Labour government will be better than the the Tories on NI. It might well be, given how weak the latter have been in response to nationalist pressure. But there are no guarantees that will be so. None at all.