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The End of
the United Kingdom May Be Nearing
Elections were supposed to settle existential
questions over Brexit—instead, they’re raising bigger ones over the nature of
the union.
20 november
2019 06:01 CET
relates to
The End of the United Kingdom May Be Nearing
With the
general election campaign picking up momentum in mid-November, Prime Minister
Boris Johnson took a moment to gaze patriotically into the future. “In 10
years’ time, I confidently prophesy, we will all be citizens of a proud,
strong, and whole United Kingdom—more united than ever,” he told an audience at
an electric-car factory in central England on Nov. 13.
That such a
comment could be framed as a bold prediction rather than a platitude shows the
scale of the chaos the country has found itself in since voting to leave the
European Union in 2016. While England is split over how—or whether—to deliver
Brexit and move the country forward, the political dynamics in the three other
constituent parts of the U.K. seem more about whether the country should exist
at all.
In
Scotland, where every voting region chose to remain in the EU, the Scottish
National Party is gunning to retake districts it lost in 2017’s snap election
by calling for another independence referendum. Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland,
Brexit has pushed the question of Irish unification to the forefront two
decades since the Good Friday Agreement largely settled it. The governments in
London and Dublin are concerned that any upset to the delicate balance of power
might reignite sectarian violence. Even in Wales, which backed leaving the EU,
a recent poll suggested more people are flirting with the idea of divorcing the
English. A party there seeking to break away is aiming to win a record number
of seats and set up a commission to look into how independence might work.
The Dec. 12
election was supposed to break the deadlock in Parliament so the U.K.’s
psychodrama over its relationship with continental Europe could finally be
resolved. Yet an even bigger question now shadows the campaign: Will the
country that came together and built a global empire ultimately implode?
“We have a really special opportunity to
escape the chaos in Westminster and to build a future for ourselves,” says Stephen
Flynn, an SNP candidate running in the Scottish oil city of Aberdeen. “Our core
message is to escape the Boris Johnson Brexit disaster that is looming.”
Johnson was
quick to visit Scotland on Nov. 7, a little more than a week after elections
were declared, in an attempt to drum up support for the 312-year-old union. Yet
many of Johnson’s core constituents couldn’t care less about holding on to the
north. In a mid-November poll by Sky News, 41% of Brexit voters said that
leaving the EU would be worth losing Scotland, while only 18% said they
disagreed; 17% said they’d be happy to see Scotland secede from the U.K.
regardless of the circumstances.
Scotland
has already voted once on independence. The 2014 referendum ended with 55%
opting to stay in the U.K. Johnson—like his predecessor as head of the
Conservative Party, Theresa May—has refused to sanction another one, and
another Tory insider said it simply wouldn’t happen while the party ran the
U.K.
But if
Brexit has shown anything, it’s that predictions can prove foolish. Nicola
Sturgeon, the SNP’s leader, is adamant that Scots should get another vote now
that the circumstances in the U.K. have changed, demanding one as early as next
year. Some of her more restless troops are suggesting Scotland push ahead
without official sanction from Parliament, a move she’s balked at so far. Sturgeon
could yet have her way: She’s made an informal coalition pact with Labour, the
U.K.’s biggest opposition party. Should Johnson’s Conservatives fall short of a
majority again, the SNP’s price for supporting a new government led by Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn would be a fresh vote on independence.
Touring
Scotland in early November, Corbyn was eager to put the focus on his socialist
agenda, particularly spending on health and taxing the rich. He said there
could be another Scottish vote, just not in the first two years of his
government. The latest polls show the outcome of any referendum would be too
close to call. The SNP, which has run Scotland’s semi-autonomous administration
the past dozen years, is confident it can win back many of the 21 districts it
lost to rival parties in 2017, when the Conservatives ended up needing gains in
Scotland to keep power. Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson quit after
Johnson took the helm, weakening the party there.
In the
affluent North Sea seaside town of Stonehaven, 15 miles south of Aberdeen,
Conservative parliamentarian Andrew Bowie is using pictures of Sturgeon on his
campaign leaflets rather than Johnson as he defends his seat. “She’s leader of
the SNP, she keeps threatening to bring more bitterness, more division to this
country,” Bowie says. “I would love over anything not to be talking about
independence.”
The
integrity of the U.K. is also occupying the Democratic Unionist Party, the
largest pro-British group in Northern Ireland. (When the Catholic-dominated
republic gained independence in 1922, the mainly Protestant north remained in
the U.K.) Before Johnson came back from Brussels with a revised Brexit deal in
October, the DUP’s 10 lawmakers in London had aligned with the Conservatives to
give them a majority. But they recoiled at Johnson’s agreement, which would
treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the U.K. after Brexit, thus
potentially weakening its ties with the rest of the country. That, ultimately,
could push it toward a “border poll,” a referendum on whether to reunite the
island of Ireland.
The DUP’s
biggest adversaries, the nationalists of Sinn Fein, are campaigning with the
slogan “Time for Unity.” Sinn Fein is looking at the math needed to unseat
lawmakers opposed to a reunification vote. In fact, across the U.K., some
candidates are stepping aside to give would-be rivals with the same position on
Brexit a better chance of victory. In leafy and affluent south Belfast, where
the DUP is vulnerable, Sinn Fein declined to oppose nationalist candidate
Claire Hanna of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. She’s observed a
palpable shift toward a border poll. “There is a change: People are beginning
to discuss the possibility in a way that wasn’t happening before the Brexit
referendum,” Hanna says at a cafe. Around the block, red-white-and-blue British
flags still fly over apartment buildings.
Although
Hanna says the time isn’t right yet for a vote on Irish reunification, because
of the febrile political situation over Brexit, the upcoming general election
could be another catalyst for one if the nationalists gain enough ground.
Should the parliamentary math in Westminster eventually lead to another
Scottish independence referendum, then calls would grow louder for one in
Ireland.
Ultimately,
as with Scotland, the prospect of a border poll in Ireland depends on the British
government, and the criteria for when one can be held aren’t precise. The Good
Friday Agreement states that there can be a vote if the U.K. minister in charge
of Northern Ireland sees a likely majority in favor of a united Ireland. That’s
hard to judge. “Every Northern Irish election is like a mini-referendum on
unity,” says Richard Bullick, a former adviser to DUP party leader Arlene
Foster. “But we also have to be careful about overinterpreting the results.”
If the DUP
were to lose just two lawmakers to nationalist parties, however, that may be
clear enough. Add that to an emphatic SNP triumph in Scotland, which the polls
suggest is likely, and the U.K.’s future would look shaky at the very least.
—With Kitty Donaldson and Greg Ritchie
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