Brexit Britain’s biggest test could be the ability to survive

Photographer: Emily Macinnes / Bloomberg

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson has a penchant for big projects, but few are as striking as the proposal for a physical link across the Irish Sea between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Whether it’s a pipe dream of more than a billion pounds or a sign of ambition befitting the post – Brexit era, a feasibility study is underway as part of the government’s overview of how to better bind the UK and its four constituent countries. A more immediate concern could be whether the link could one day link two independent states that are no longer part of the UK

As Britain has turned its back on the European Union a hundred days since, it has struggled with the continent over issues ranging from customs controls to vaccinations and financial services.

Tension at home broadens the spectrum of a more existential conflict, but it will determine whether Johnson’s quest to strike out in the world under the banner of a reviving “Global Britain” should be downgraded to a more humble ‘Global England’.

Scotland Hall will hold elections to its Edinburgh Parliament on 6 May, which will be held as a vote on whether the country has the right to – or the need for – another say in its constitutional future. Polls proposes that the Scottish National Party could sweep for a majority for independence, a high bar given the proportional electoral system, and push its demands for a second referendum on splitting the UK.

In Northern Ireland, grievances are being made about the separate treatment of the British mainland in the Brexit agreement between London and Brussels, and the province’s bitterly divided past is reappears as a result. More than 70 police officers were injured in a week of riots by pro-British loyalists throwing petrol bombs. Polls point to a remarkable shift in sentiment for a region so long dominated by its Unionist community, with a majority now saying they want to vote on reunification with the Republic of Ireland within five years.

Even in Wales, which, unlike Scotland or Northern Ireland, voted with England in favor of Brexit, support for independence increased during the coronavirus pandemic. Wales is also holding elections for its regional assembly on May 6, and there is a chance that the ruling Labor Party may have the right to share the nationalist Plaid Cymru party. Plaid it promised to hold a vote on Welsh independence within five years.

There have been speculations for decades about the disintegration of the three-century-old union, certainly long before Brexit became popular. At their own game, the developments in each of the three countries do not necessarily mean revolutionary change, but speak of changing cultural identities and varying degrees of political dissatisfaction with the center of power in London.

Collectively, it is difficult to ignore the growing sense that things are relentlessly on the verge, whether to reduce or strengthen the union, and that Brexit has given the powers greater agency.

“But for Brexit, the union would be relatively safe, but I’m not so sure now,” he said. Matt Qvortrup, a professor of political science at Coventry University, who has served as special adviser on British constitutional matters. Change “will not be tomorrow, but will give it ten years.”

The challenge for Johnson, who was the driving force behind the successful campaign to bring down the EU in what was set up as an attempt to regain British sovereignty, is how to alleviate the political wounds at home. His dilemma is exacerbated by the fact that his Conservatives rule in Westminster, but not in Belfast, Edinburgh or Cardiff, where separate parties have the right, reflecting the different regional preferences of voters in a process known as devolution.

Read more: 100 days of Brexit: was it as bad as ‘Project Fear’ warned?

The most powerful of these devolved governments is in Scotland, where most of the policy areas that are important in daily life are governed from health and education to transport and justice. The UK controls areas including foreign affairs, defense and macroeconomic policies.

Johnson has so far refused to give the SNP board the legal consent needed to keep another referendum watertight, saying the vote in 2014 was a one-time event. Scots then voted 55% to 45% to stay in the UK, but at that time there was no idea that the UK was on the verge of leaving the EU.

The focus, according to Johnson, should now be to rebuild together from the pandemic and that constitutional issues are an undesirable distraction. The leader of Johnson’s Conservatives in Scotland, Douglas Ross, says it is recovery or referendum. We can not do both. He called on other opposition parties to work together in some constituencies to stop the nationalists.

The election campaign was suspended on Friday the death of the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip.

Another SNP landslide – the party has been in power since 2007 – will intensify the battle with London, and if Edinburgh raises demands, investors could panic and the pound could be hit. There is division in Johnson’s party over whether his government should simply continue to ignore Scotland’s calls for another chance at independence, or to buy time and offer enough money or more power in the hope that the issue will disappear. .

The risk is that it is rather patchy. And the longer the dispute continues, the greater the chance that it will be resolved by demographics. Support for independence is highest among young people and the Scottish voting age is 16.

In any case, Scots have never gotten hot for the Eton-trained Johnson, whose bumpy upper-class carriers alongside the earthly matter of Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon.

The crux of Sturgeon’s argument for another independence vote is typically straightforward: Brexit changed the game. Not one district of Scotland voted to leave the EU in 2016, but it had to leave with the rest of the UK anyway. In the years of wrestling until the Brexit on 31 January 2020, there were only tough sections, with the finished administrations all claiming to have been eliminated.

Some of the anti-Brexit sentiments have been turned into support for the independence cause. According to a a strategy paper drafted for the Conservatives and seen by Bloomberg in October, is a concern that there are not enough pro-Brexit voters who can counter it.

Emily Gray, who runs polls Ipsos MORI in Scotland says Brexit was critical to the gradual increase in support for independence The result is ‘significant doubt in Scotland about the future of the union’, she said. “More than half of Scots expect the United Kingdom not to exist in its current form in five years’ time.”

Johnson seems to have a strong argument for the union in the form of the successful rollout of the UK to date. Yet Sturgeon, not Johnson, is the face of the pandemic battle in Scotland, and the prime minister says Johnson’s handling of Covid-19, which recorded the highest death toll in Europe, stressed the need for full autonomy.

According to the latest Ipsos MORI poll, conducted between March 29 and April 4, the SNP would occupy 70 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament. As the Green-Independent Greens see a jump in support, the momentum for a referendum seems to be growing. Some other polls showed that the SNP would fall short, but no one predicted a pro-union majority.