At the SDLP manifesto launch, Colum Eastwood was asked by the Irish News Political Correspondent, John Manley about a border poll and here is how he responded;
I want a border poll, we’ve just made it a lot more winnable, because of the work that Mark and our MPs did in Westminster with David Davis. The work that we did in negotiations when we were talking about lots of different things, we were talking to the British Secretary of State with making sure that we get re-entry into the European Union…
We think there is a route for actually winning a border poll…I think that will need to happen after Brexit.
Eastwood did stress that it was important to work on engaging with Unionists and building a reconciled Ireland, rather than focusing on just getting better election results. He argued for a Unity Poll to be seen as a key part of rejoining the EU, rather than a narrowly focused issue.
David McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs