The border in the Irish Sea will only harden over time

The DUP, which has parted company with Johnson over the lockdown, no longer provides the British government’s majority.

Instead, across Wales, the English Midlands, and the North of England, the Conservatives now hold by tiny majorities seats that contain major centres of Irish Catholic population, from Crewe to Consett and well beyond.

So yes, a border down the Irish Sea. It will harden over time.

But like the centres of Irish Catholic population in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the North of Ireland, the Six Counties, call it what you will, has benefited enormously from the United Kingdom’s social democracy since 1945, eroded though that has been since the Budget of December 1976.

Elsewhere in Ireland, there are still charges for visiting the doctor.

Given that a united and independent Ireland is now inevitable as a result of Brexit, it is now time to organise in order to secure economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, both within a united and independent Ireland, and within a united and independent Britain.

Former members of the British Parliament who had expressed these views on social media were invited to sign this letter, but did not reply.

David Lindsay, Co Durham