Northern Ireland at the polls - Decades of real progress in jeopardy

FANTASY has all but achieved parity of esteem with reality in political debate, so maybe it’s possible to use it, even if a nightmarish kind, to make a point.

Imagine the morning, and this is more a ‘when’ than an ‘if’, when the airwaves come alive with reports of terrorist attacks in London’s Underground. “The first explosion was at Waterloo just before eight o’clock. Casualties unknown,” and, a few minutes later, “a second explosion has been reported, this time at Liverpool Street. Heavy casualties... ”

This dreadful scenario moved beyond the realm of possibility yesterday when Britain’s new terror watchdog warned that terrorism represents a threat not felt since the IRA campaigns of the 1970s. The agency warned that Islamic State was planning “indiscriminate attacks”. Imagine, then, if it was established that the bombers reached Britain via the North? Via the EU’s backdoor to post-Brexit Britain?