Letters: Stability under Sunak reduces risk of a border poll

I may need to get a Netflix subscription, because our free-to-air, horribly entertaining Westminster psychodrama is over.

It is over. One might say that a long national nightmare is over, despite the severe economic problems ahead.

Northern Ireland is on my mind. But first, a little context as I see it.

The national self-harm began in 2010, when austerity was taken too far. Then came David Cameron's clever EU referendum wheeze, leading to the chaotic administrations of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

The slogans "Take Back Control" and "Get Brexit Done", and the even fairly recently used accusation of "Project Fear", may have worked. Thankfully, "Bring Back Boris" was a step too far.

Mr Johnson has marginalised himself and his acolytes. He no doubt thinks he will return at a later date. That seems unlikely. The spell is broken.

Rishi Sunak is sensible, internationally respected, and not widely disliked in Scotland, which is very important.

He has shown little interest in NI, but that will change. It's up to Unionists to get him on board, as far as possible, with what needs to be done about the Protocol. The EU will also probably cooperate now, up to a point.

The solution to the Irish sea border is not going to be perfect, but it should be substantial and should help build stability.

Stability reduces the risk of a border poll being called, or being lost. Stability transforms everything. It helps us, in the whole UK, return more or less to what we were before the psychodrama began, wiser for the experience.

Whatever happens at the next general election the Prime Minister will be responsible and effective. The era of Johnson and Corbyn is over. The UK should now be able to rebuild itself, with NI one of its most dynamic components.

At least some elements of the unwelcome constitutional nature of the Protocol may survive in some form, though I suspect its practical effect will, after negotiations, go away.

We might have to accept this, along with other awful setbacks UK-wide, as part of the price we have to pay for the periodically disastrous nature of Conservative rule since 2010 ( I don't include Theresa May in this criticism, nor many individual Conservatives, of course ). But now, at last, the adults are palpably back in the room.

You can already feel the breezes of stability in the autumn air in GB. We all have to get those breezes strengthening in NI as soon as possible.

John Gemmell, Wem, Shropshire