So this is what history feels like. Painful, frankly. None of the usual meteorological metaphors – earthquake, hurricane, avalanche, landslide, tsunami – seem strong enough. Make no mistake, Theresa May was right. This is the biggest constitutional drama – even crisis – since the abdication.
Actually, it’s bigger than that. It’s the greatest (internal) shock to the British state since the 1918 election. Sinn Fein won 47 percent of the vote in Ireland that year as it all but swept southern Ireland. The Irish Parliamentary Party lost 61 of its 67 seats, every one of them to Eamonn de Valera’s party who increased their representation from 6 to 67. As then, so now.
Even nationalists can’t quite believe this has happened. Motherwell! Rutherglen! Paisley! Coatbridge! Kirkcaldy! All of them places to feature in a new version of an old Proclaimers tune.
It will take time to sink in.
But something died last night. This was indeed the end of one old song and a monumental disaster for Unionism.
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