If the polls are right and Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson romps home in first place in Thursday’s European elections, it will be the third time in row the party has topped the poll since Bairbre de Brún broke through in 2009.

Another modest electoral advance for the Shinners then, but what happens with the other seats? The drama of the night is lower down the order. Assuming the DUP’s Diane Dodds comfortably takes second spot, the race for bronze will be the tale of the night, with, variously, the SDLP, Alliance, the UUP and TUV slugging it out. As ever, the sheer unpredictability of transfer voting opening-up a range of possibilities.

It’s a bit of a pound shop Game of Thrones working out who will prevail – and others on Northern Slant have already written with erudition about the various permutations – however one thing is clear: If Sinn Féin does indeed grab top spot and the SDLP’s Colum Eastwood was to take the third seat, it would be a symbolic breakthrough for United Irelanders.

I wouldn’t expect either party to explicitly point out what I’m writing here. There is an aversion on the Republican-Nationalist side of the aisle from countenancing anything that even whiffs of ‘the sectarian headcount.’

Unionist parties have traditionally had fewer inhibitions – and, frankly, I don’t blame them. Maximising the vote for the Union may be a bit unseemly to liberal sensibilities but at least it’s intellectually honest. Politics is a numbers game and, divisions apart, they all agree – DUP, UUP and TUV – about defending their core position above all else.

Fair enough, but republicans and nationalists would be mad on this occasion to pass up the opportunity to send an unmistakable message that the centre of gravity in Northern Irish politics is shifting.

Not least because Sinn Féin and the SDLP have been the most consistent opponents of Brexit and done most to articulate its deleterious consequences. On that point alone, some measure of co-operation is warranted. (After all, Remainers in British politics are doing something similar, cleaving towards ant-Brexit parties).

Ah, but if it’s just about opposition to Brexit, why shouldn’t republicans and nationalists give their second preferences to Alliance, or the Greens? Of course, there are many estimable people in either party, but when it comes to the constitutional question, both are disingenuous in avoiding setting out a clear position. It’s not enough to focus on social rights, or environmentalism and ignore the fundamental issue at the heart of Northern Ireland’s tortured polity.

It would be very odd if Sinn Féin supporters gave their transfers to a party like Alliance, which might be thoroughly of-the-moment in terms of its social liberalism but which has nothing to say about a border poll – simply to smite the SDLP. There is clearly little love lost between the two, not helped by the clumsy intervention of former SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon the other day, poo-pooing any idea of an early move towards Irish unity.

Yet the SDLP remains, in its bones, a nationalist party committed to reuniting the island of Ireland constitutionally. It seems to make sense, then, that like his illustrious namesake, Sinn Féin voters ‘make his day’ and give their second preferences to Colum Eastwood.