A few things about this:

• "When Sinn Féin wins the next general election in the Republic – which polls say it almost certainly will" – :doubt: Here is the latest poll - https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2023/0625/1391055-opinion-poll/ - SF have 29%, whereas FG+FF have 38%. They're only the single largest party; the coalition opposing them is larger.

• It's irrelevant whether SF gets into government. The status of Northern Ireland is decided by the people, not the government. The Good Friday Agreement 1(i) states they will "recognise the legitimacy of whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland with regard to its status, whether they prefer to continue to support the Union with Great Britain or a sovereign united Ireland"

• "The latter [Unite Ireland] will panic the British state." lol no, London dgaf about NI

• "Even the fact of the party’s victory will be extraordinary, likely triggering a screech of English nationalism." – this is true

• "The party’s growth is largely because it is left-wing. As property prices have surged back since the 2008 crash, younger people have been pushed out of the housing market. Homelessness rates are rising. And Ireland still doesn’t have proper universal healthcare, despite long-standing promises from all parties. In the 2020 elections, voters listed healthcare and housing as their most important issues, followed by ‘the economy’ and climate change. Reunification of Ireland didn’t feature." - this is true

• "Most citizens of the Republic are in favour of a united Ireland, but it’s not a priority – for now. Just as progressive Scottish voters in 2007 and 2011 backed the SNP primarily to oppose Labour’s rightward drift but came to embrace the constitutional consequences of doing so, so Sinn Féin’s new voters in Ireland aren’t supporting them in order to create a constitutional crisis in Britain. That’s just going to be an added bonus." - this is true

• "Mostly, this success has come from winning over culturally Catholic women. Polling in 2019 showed men were around 10% more likely to vote for Sinn Féin – perhaps because women were put off by the party’s macho image and association with historic paramilitary violence. But while male support has stayed steady since then, female support has shot up over the last year, to the point that women are now around 10% more likely than men to back the party." - weird that they didn't mention in this paragraph that the leaders north and south of the border are women

• "But there seems to be something more subtle going on, too. Much of the unionist demise has come from falling turnout among Protestants. For years now, unionist voters I have interviewed have been angry at the DUP over a string of corruption allegations, its failure to stand up to austerity and, for some, its conservative social policies. But they would still show up and vote for them out of fear of a Sinn Féin victory. Now they aren’t bothering." - this is true, unionism is politically disorganised. Look at Edwin Poots or Ar;ene Foster's scandals

• "More recent polls tend to show support for unity between 30% and 40%, with around 50% opposing and the rest undecided." - see this is the key! The Good Friday Agreement

• "In 2001, 0.4% of people saw themselves as neither Catholic nor Protestant. Now, that’s 20%." - this is just the decline of religion. Catholic ≠ nationalist. Protestant ≠ unionist.

Basically the article focuses too much on who will win a parliamentary election; the point is purely who will win a referendum. Polls nearly always show a referendum would favour the UK.

People underestimate how strong unionism is. It's the dominant culture, they have their Orange lodges, they still control the PSNI, they have their marches, they have the voting majority.