The inexorable rise of Sinn Fein is not a political given

Early indications in Britain and Ireland are that the results will be largely as expected.

The Brexit Party will as predicted have polled most across the UK, but late last night it was not clear whether the victory would be on the scale that Nigel Farage hoped.

Even so, any victory by him at all is a remarkable shift in British politics.

It has upended conventional wisdoms on both the left and right of the political spectrum: last night, even in the first results, Labour had already lost some seats to the Brexit Party.

It also seemed that the Tory sceptic Dan Hannan was going to lose his position in the European Parliament.

If the latter outcome is confirmed, it will be an injustice. Mr Hannan was an early eurosceptic, dating back to the time of Maastricht, when he was a young man and he saw that the creation of a European Union was problematic. He was fiercely critical of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, but stayed loyal to his party, yet even so has now lost his berth.

Here in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein’s Martina Anderson will probably top the poll, but her party seems to have done less well, perhaps even badly, south of the border.

That is a jolt to those who assume that the inexorable rise of Sinn Fein is a long-term given. The same was assumed prior to the Irish general election of 2007, but in the event the republican party did not do well in the Dail that year. Its subsequent presidential results have also been disappointing.

The full picture for Sinn Fein will be apparent later today.

Whatever happens, the challenges for unionism are not going away. Polling now shows very high support for Irish unity in the Republic, a cause that was once dormant there. This is at least in part linked to Irish anger at Brexit.

The fate of the Union, and indeed Stormont, will depend on the next Tory leader. There are various candidates, and there is time now to examine their respective merits.