Time for North to get back to business

Party politics must step aside while matters of national interest are dealt with

If Boris Johnson is to be believed, the Brexit trade talks must be completed by the end of 2020

In years to come, the agreed approach adopted by Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin on how to deal with the fraught issue of Brexit will be cited in political science lectures as an example of when the national interest was put ahead of party politics.

Now, it appears the two leaders have decided to adopt a shared approach on an equally thorny issue – a border poll on Irish reunification. In pre-Christmas interviews, both men ...