Editorial: The Alliance Party leader Naomi Long has bolstered the nationalist push for a border poll

​This newspaper has been scathing about the weakness of the Labour government towards an increasingly assertive nationalist Ireland.

​We stand by those criticisms over Labour’s woeful handling of matters ranging from legacy to the Irish Sea border (highlighted this very week by a House of Lords committee), displays of weakness that have delighted Sinn Fein. So it is only fair to note an issue on which Labour has been strong: a border poll.

In the 1990s the UK essentially agreed to lose control over whether part of its territory, Northern Ireland, stayed within the nation, by saying that a 50% plus one vote would mean that NI would become part of the Republic of Ireland. The UK did not go on to say that in such a scenario there would be no possible reversal, but everyone knows that that is exactly what would happen in the event of a plebiscite in which a narrow majority of people here voted for an all Ireland: It would be irreversible, with no return route to the UK.

There is only one vital obstacle to such a referendum taking place: the discretion of the secretary of state.

Last year, the new NI secretary Hilary Benn said that “there is only one criterion for the holding of such a poll, which is the one that is clearly set out in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 ... the act states that only the secretary of state can direct the holding of such a poll if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom”.

This underlined an important truth: that there is no need for further clarity on the criteria for a border poll. But the Alliance Naomi Long, in yet another BBC broadcast about an all Ireland, has backed the nationalist push for ‘clarity’ that seeks to box the UK into the one-way process of what would become repeat border polls. Once SF get one, they will demand repeat polls even if they lose.​​​​​​