THE break-up of the UK has been hastened by Brexit not just north of the Border but on the island of Ireland too with Irish unification becoming a real possibility within five years.

A recent Sunday Times poll revealing that 51% of the 2392 people surveyed in Northern Ireland supported a referendum in that timeframe prompted a wave of optimism among Nationalists and cynicism in Unionist quarters.

Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill tweeted: “Over 50% of people here support a referendum on unity in the next five years.

“There is an unstoppable conversation under way on our constitutional future.

“It is time for the Irish government to step up preparations.

“We can overcome the barriers of partition and build a new Ireland.”

While DUP First Minister Arlene Foster countered: “We all know how divisive a border poll would be. For us in Northern Ireland, what we have to do is all come together to fight against Covid and not be distracted by what would be absolutely reckless at this time.’’

The backdrop to the surge in support for unification is the continuing disruption caused since the New Year by Brexit with goods, and even people, being held up by new red tape.

And the EU raised temperatures too when it temporarily triggered a controversial part of the Northern Ireland protocol – Article 16 – over vaccine distribution which it then pulled after a torrent of criticism in Britain, Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland.

The article allows the European Union or the UK to act unilaterally to avoid any serious “economic, societal or environmental difficulties” – and it came amid coronavirus vaccine supply struggles on the continent.

And the British Government too has raised the spectre that it would override elements of the Brexit agreement to prevent a trade barrier in the Irish Sea.

Brexit, Covid and the newspaper poll on unification have all ratcheted up tensions in the province with fears that it might spill over into violence.

With Northern Irish politicians repeating their grievance that they are being used as a bargaining tool between the larger forces of Britain, Ireland and the EU, former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s intervention has not been received well.

Now the editor-in-chief of The Evening Standard, Osborne said: “Northern Ireland is already heading for the exit door,‘’ which drew a sharp riposte from Sir Jeffrey Donaldson of the DUP.

He countered: “Recent polling suggested the majority of people here wanted to remain part of the UK.

“We don’t believe Brexit is going to change that significantly.’’

And while there is an emotional pull within the Republic of Ireland for unification, former Taoiseach Enda Kenny cautioned: “Having some kind of facile Border poll is meaningless, in that if the intent was to have a poll just to reverse the position and have the next 50 or 100 years the reverse of what happened before. That is not the sharing of a place and that is not showing the resilience and the work to be put in to understand everybody’s point of view as to how you should live in safety with freedom and respect and dignity.”

As Scotland moves inexorably towards its own new arrangement with the UK, as an independent nation, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon addressed the Irish question in a political forum.

She said: “It is entirely a matter for the people in Ireland ... I suspect Brexit probably makes that more likely than it was before.

“I do have friends in Ireland.

“We sometimes joke about which will come first – an independent Scotland or a united Ireland.

“Who knows? Maybe neither will happen, but I firmly believe an independent Scotland will happen.

“Maybe before too long we will see both.”