THE next Irish government should plan for constitutional change across the island, a former SDLP leader said today.

Colum Eastwood told the BBC’s Sunday Politics programme that conversations about a unity referendum had “moved to a different level” since Brexit in 2016.

The Foyle MP revealed that before and after the recent Irish election, his party’s New Ireland Commission wrote to all parties asking them “to make a commitment to working towards Irish unity and to planning for Irish unity, if they form part of the next government.”

He said: “Every one of them wrote back with that commitment and we saw that in their manifestos.

“What we have to do is make sure all of the parties who say they believe in this are committed to actually working towards it.”

Exploratory talks between parties are continuing in Dublin with the aim of forming a new government, with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael together just a couple of seats short of a Dail majority.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously insisted that the issue of a united Ireland is not on his horizon.