From United Kingdom to Untied Kingdom

THE UNITED KINGDOM was not born in glory. The English conquest of Ireland in the 17th century was brutal, motivated by fear of invasion and facilitated by the superiority of Cromwell's army. The English takeover of Scotland in the 18th century was more pragmatic, born out of Scottish bankruptcy after an ill-fated American investment and English worries about France. But the resulting union was more than the sum of its parts: it gave birth to an intellectual and scientific revolution, centred on Edinburgh as well as London; an industrial revolution which grew out of that, enriching Glasgow as well as Manchester and Liverpool; an empire built as much by Scots as Englishmen; and a military power which helped save the world from fascism.

That union is now weaker than at any point in living memory. The causes are many, but Brexit is the most important. Political leaders in London, Edinburgh and Belfast have put their country at risk by the way they have managed Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Boris Johnson, the prime minister, has done it carelessly, by putting party above country and espousing a hard Brexit. The Scots never wanted to leave the EU and are inclined to seek a future outside the UK . In the past year opinion polls have shifted from a small majority backing the union—broadly the pattern since a referendum rejecting independence in 2014—to a small majority backing departure.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, has done it determinedly, by exploiting Scots’ dislike of the Brexit settlement. The ills of fishermen unable to sell their catches are blamed on Westminster. Polls suggest that, in the Scottish elections in May, the SNP will gain an overall majority in a system designed to avoid it.

Arlene Foster, first minister of Northern Ireland and head of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), has done it stupidly, by rejecting the softer Brexit proposed by Theresa May, Mr Johnson's predecessor. That would have avoided the vexed issue of how and where to create a border with the EU. Neither Brussels, nor Dublin nor London was prepared to create a hard border on the island of Ireland, so Mr Johnson created one instead in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, weakening the union which the DUP exists to defend. That helps explain a week of rioting earlier this month. Resentments fester and, as the 100th anniversary of Irish independence nears, reunification has never looked closer.

If the Scots, Northern Irish or even the Welsh choose to go their own way, they should be allowed to do so—but only once it is clearly their settled will. That is by no means the case yet, and this newspaper hopes it never will be.

Breaking up a country should never be done lightly, because it is a painful process—politically, economically and emotionally. Ask the Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis or the Serbs, Croats and other former citizens of Yugoslavia. Few splits happen as peaceably and easily as that of the Czechs and Slovaks. Though it seems inconceivable that the citizens of today’s UK would start murdering each other, that is exactly what they did during the Northern Irish Troubles that ended less than a quarter of a century ago.

When not bickering about the constitutional question, the UK’s constituent parts work together fine. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland ran separate covid-19 lockdowns, adjusted to local rates and sensitivities. Vaccines, where scale counts, were run nationally.

The UK’s survival matters more broadly, too. Although its historical record is hardly unimpeachable, it is on the side of democracy, human rights and transparency in a nasty world. No doubt its constituent parts would embrace similar values, but when independent England or Scotland piped up in defence of Hong Kong, they would be easily ignored—especially if they lost their permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

The fact that the survival of the union is now in Mr Johnson’s unreliable hands will bring no comfort to anybody who hopes it has a future. Yet he is concerned enough to have created a “union unit” within Downing Street, and put it under Michael Gove, one of his cleverest colleagues and the government’s only high-profile non-English minister.

Some of what Mr Johnson is doing is sensible. He is right to insist that now is not the time for another Scottish referendum. The last one, only seven years ago, was advertised as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. It is true that Britain’s circumstances have since changed, but Brexit is very recent, and opinion about it has not had a chance to settle. There should not be another referendum until polls show a clear and sustained majority for independence. Holding frequent referendums is a recipe for instability and an eventual end to the union: at some point the trigger and the bullet will coincide.

But the government is getting much else wrong. It should stop plastering the Union Jack everywhere. To those whose identity is primarily regional, it looks like a campaign that is designed to stamp Westminster’s ownership on all corners of the nation. It should use non-English figures more, including Ruth Davidson, the popular former leader of the Scottish Conservative Party. Mr Johnson also needs to stop lying. His dishonesty over the Irish Sea border, which he said would be created “over [his] dead body”, exacerbated his betrayal of the province. And he needs to improve Britain’s relations with Europe, including by aligning Britain’s food-and-agriculture standards with those of the EU—the main source of the trade friction that has infuriated Northern Ireland’s unionists. That would make a trade deal with America harder, but no such deal is on offer now, and none ever will be if the peace in Northern Ireland is put in jeopardy.

You only had two jobs

Mr Johnson was elected prime minister to “get Brexit done”. In carrying that out, he has endangered his country's integrity. His single most important task for the rest of his term in office is to hold the union together. If he fails, he will go down in history not as the man who freed the United Kingdom, but as the man who destroyed it. ■

Dig deeper

Brexit has reinvigorated Scottish nationalism (Apr 2021)
Northern Ireland’s unhappy centenary (Apr 2021)