Editorial: ​Prime Minister gives a good speech but barely mentions Northern Ireland

​Rishi Sunak gave a long and at times stirring speech to Conservative Party delegates yesterday.

​The prime minister spoke of his pride at being an ethnic minority prime minister in the most successful multi ethnic country in the world, and pointed to his racially diverse cabinet, with other minority background Tory politicians filling key offices of state.

He also set out a range of traditionally conservative positions, as you would expect in a party that won office in 2019 based on key formerly Labour voters who were impressed by its patriotic stance on Brexit.

Mr Sunak unequivocally defended the idea that there are two sexes, men and women. He spoke about the importance of getting inflation down. He spoke about the need for people who are physically able to work to be in work, rather than on benefits.

He spoke about setting realistic routes to achieving Net Zero as opposed to unrealistically ambitious ones. He spoke about the government’s determination to reduce the number of immigrants coming in, and defended its controversial Rwanda policy for dealing with that issue. He spoke about the importance of defence and veterans.

And he spoke of the United Kingdom as a family, of four nations, albeit one in which politics was broken in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast.

You wonder why the party has not been more outspoken on these sorts of issues before, given their importance and their popularity.

However his main speech to the conference did not touch on Northern Ireland in a meaningful way, which is regrettable, given the seriousness of the Irish Sea border. NI is not a popular issue, so it is easily downplayed in such a context, but it should be a high priority to anyone who speaks as movingly about the UK as Mr Sunak did.​​​​​​​