UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the DUP’s Arlene Foster are both opposed to the backstop

Almost three out of five voters in Northern Ireland are in favour of a “border in the Irish Sea” Brexit compromise to avoid up to 40,000 job losses in the north and an economic shock for its food and farming sectors, a new poll has revealed.

An overwhelming majority of nationalists, a clear majority of Alliance and Green Party voters, and one in six unionists support the Northern Ireland-only backstop as a way of averting a hard Brexit, the online poll by LucidTalk found. The backstop is opposed by the DUP and UK prime minister Boris Johnson.

Northern Ireland voters have also taken a dim view of how their government is handling Brexit negotiations with the European Union; more than four out of five believe