This general election on December 12 is long overdue

It should have been agreed months ago, perhaps even years ago, given that parliament has been unable to resolve Brexit since Theresa May failed to win her surprise general election in May of 2017.

That led to a disastrous period of confusion and stalemate, in which the reality of the then prime minister’s inability to get her plans for exiting the EU through was avoided by MPs who did not want to submit themselves for re-election.

There is every possibility that the same thing will happen in this election. Mr Johnson’s poll lead over Jeremy Corbyn is lower than Mrs May’s was in 2017.

But this contest has to happen, because there is no other obvious way to resolve the impasse short of another referendum, which would cause fresh division and might lead to a similarly close vote that only exacerbates the bitterness.

There are, to be frank, no obvious good outcomes for unionists. A narrow majority in which they hold the balance of power again is the best scenario, but we have found out that even that does not embolden Tories to resist Ireland/EU.

Ironically, a situation in which Mr Corbyn is short of a majority, while disastrous for the UK politically, might be best from a strict unionist constitutional position, because he would be unable to railroad through any of his pro nationalist instincts, but might well go for a softer UK-wide Brexit.

In any event, Labour governments tend to feel less able to abandon unionism than Tory governments do.

But having said that, there is no pretending that a Corbyn regime is a welcome prospect. That it might be a fractionally less bad one is a reflection of the extent to which Mr Johnson has betrayed his own words about never dividing the UK.

The short-term goal for unionists is to get the vote out, particularly in seats that could fall to nationalists or Alliance, which now sides with nationalism on most key issues.

Above all, it is crucial that Nigel Dodds is re-elected.