With Boris able to impose his Irish Sea border, Scottish nationalists rampant and unionists losing votes, it is already a grim night for unionism

One thing was clear almost as soon as the polls closed last night.
News Letter editorialNews Letter editorial
News Letter editorial

Unionism is not entering a happy period.

Unless the UK-wide exit poll is spectacularly wrong, Boris Johnson is going to have a large majority. But it will not be like the majorities that prime ministers have had in the past. Even Margaret Thatcher, who had some of the largest majorities since 1945, lost a few key votes.

Mr Johnson, however, has expunged the rebels in his party. There is not going to be a single Tory MP who will stand in the way of his determination to deliver Brexit swiftly or rebel against a border in the Irish Sea.

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This notion that Brexit had to be delivered by March 29, then by October 31, a demand that numerous high profile unionists foolishly endorsed, is now be replaced by January 31, but in this case it will happen. It is a disastrous outcome for unionists in Northern Ireland. Mr Johnson has shown recently either not to have understood what he agreed with the EU over Northern Ireland, or to have lied about it.

Mr Johnson is not the only culprit in this saga. David Cameron tried to win the Brexit referendum by holding it quickly. The nation needed at least five years to examine the arguments, perhaps much more than that.

But the fault is not just that of Tory leaders, but also partly that of most of us within wider unionism. There were voices pushing for a softer Brexit, and this newspaper gave space to some of them, but not many. In fact, there were calls for Northern Ireland to leave the single market and customs union as if that was likely to be implemented at will, and meanwhile nationalist Ireland was marshalling its arguments and no part of the Tory establishment was inclined to resist them.

In Scotland too, the nationalists now have renewed vigour, it seems from early poll result indications.

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And while the Northern Ireland results were not in at the time of going to press, there has clearly been a good result for the Alliance Party in many places.

Even if there are sudden reversals in these apparent result trends on both sides of the Irish Sea, it has long been clear that unionism has serious thinking and soul searching to do. It seems that that is about to become all the more urgent.