When Chris Bryant was first asked about a border poll – he had barely unpacked his suitcase – his response was suitably vague.

So vague, in fact, that former News Letter editor Ben Lowry described it as “an appalling, muddled answer… he talks as if his evasion of the constitutional question is a decisive stance, when in fact he is signalling weakness when political leaders in Dublin are increasingly pushing for the break-up of the UK”.

You won’t be surprised that I agree with Ben. Indeed I’ve noted many times in these columns that all of nationalism in Northern Ireland is now on the same page when it comes to a united Ireland (an acknowledgment, I imagine, that they don’t think an internal, stable deal with unionism is any longer possible).

Fine Gael has a blueprint for unity due out in the autumn. Leo Varadkar is leading his own campaign.

Tom Collins: Why Andy Burnham can’t be trusted on Ireland

Alex Kane: If a Stormont divorce goes through, what comes next?

And Fianna Fáil is clinging to its Shared Island Initiative; a less in-your face approach to unity, perhaps, but an approach with the same end goal as all other elements of nationalism and republicanism.

I have been monitoring the game long enough now to........

© The Irish News