“Unionists were too stupid to realise they had won and republicans were too clever to admit they had lost”.

That was the infamous verdict on the Belfast Agreement by Prof Paul Bew, the historian and adviser to David Trimble.

There is a sense of this around the UK’s incoming Labour government, which will be taking office on Friday, unless the British polling industry has gone even further awry than its Irish counterparts.

Unionists should be dancing in the streets, with relief as much as celebration.

Labour will pursue a softer Brexit, lowering the sea border if it succeeds. If it fails, Brexit’s presumed direction of travel will still be reversed in unionism’s favour.

Labour provokes less antagonism towards Westminster across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which can only benefit the union.

Labour leader Keir Starmer has declared himself a unionist who would campaign for the union in any Border poll, although such a poll “is not even on the horizon”.

His party wants to start a different constitutional conversation by enhancing devolution around the UK with quasi-federal arrangements, including reforming or replacing the House of Lords. However, this........

© The Irish Times