After fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming Prime Minister a year and a half ago, Boris Johnson of Britain came up with an extra title for himself: Minister for the Union. The new badge was intended to showcase its commitment to strengthening the ties between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which together make up the United Kingdom.
Johnson also promised to ‘get Brexit done’, which he did on the skin of his teeth, with the UK concluding a trade deal with the European Union at the last minute before leaving the club completely on 31 December pulled.
But what was supposed to help end the bitter domestic divisions unleashed by Brexit only led to a sharpening of it. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted against leaving the EU in 2016, but were powerless to stop it. Many of their residents feel renewed by the trade agreement, and their resentment towards Johnson’s government in faraway London increases.
Add to that the widespread criticism of his handling of the pandemic – the leader of Scotland is seen as a better job – and Johnson now has to face an awkward question: can this self-appointed minister of trade union rather read his latest rites ?
A man waves both a British flag and a European flag outside the parliament building during a protest against the 2016 Brexit in London.
(Justin Tallis / AFP / Getty Images)
If Michael Sturrock of Edinburgh is an indication, Johnson’s desire to keep the four regions of the United Kingdom (the British call them the “four nations”) together, is in real trouble, with a united kingdom facing danger. walk to become a shattered kingdom.
Sturrock, 26, was one of 55% of Scottish voters who preferred Scotland to remain part of the UK in 2014. But he never imagined at the time that a stay in the UK would lead to him being dragged out of the EU against his will.
Now he is in favor of Scotland going its own way. In an unprecedented development, at least 18 consecutive polls in recent months have shown that a majority or a majority of Scottish residents agree with him.
“Brexit was the fundamental turning point for me and for so many people,” Sturrock said. ‘The biggest problem for me is regaining my European citizenship. I’m really crushed. And so angry. ”
Although he regrets that young people like him can no longer pursue a dream of living and working freely within the EU with 27 countries, he also regards the policies of Johnson’s Conservative government as so far removed from Scotland’s social democratic tendencies. that secretion is the only solution.
“I am no longer convinced that staying in the UK is the democratic will of Scotland, or the best way to achieve the kind of society we want,” he said. “Independence is the way we can get it.”
Sturrock has set up a website, NoToYes, as a place where he and other voters who took part in the Scottish independence debate can meet and share their stories. He is surprised at the interest of voters in the political spectrum.
“We have to move forward as one movement,” he said.
Sturrock’s shifting views are music to the ears of Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has devoted much of her political career to the struggle for Scottish independence.
Thomas Devine, one of Scotland’s leading historians, says Brexit was ‘the gift of the gods’ for her Scottish National Party. Not only can Sturgeon point out that a majority of Scots did not want to leave the EU in the first place, but the new reality of trade in a world after Brexit has hit Scottish businesses hard in recent weeks.
According to the local fish and seafood industry, trade with Europe – worth more than $ 1.3 billion to Scottish businesses – is on the verge of collapse as new border controls and lengthy customs reforms lead to canceled cancellations and orders that are not timely arrived at destinations.
“It seems to have happened is a slow burn in terms of the effects of Brexit,” Devine said. “There is a growing sense that the nations are going in different directions.”
Sturgeon now plans to hold a symbolic vote on a Scottish divorce from the UK if her party wins the local election in May. The aim is to put more pressure on Johnson to give a referendum again, as a new referendum is not binding unless the central government in London approves it.
The transition to life outside the EU was no less strained or complicated across the Irish Sea.
In Northern Ireland, where a fragile peace between breakaway republics and British loyalists has prevailed for about 20 years, there were fears that Brexit would revive sectarian tensions if a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland arose, creating a remains a permanent member. of the EU. To avoid this, the new trade agreement leaves Northern Ireland within the EU’s internal market for goods, and to some extent, its customs framework, although Northern Ireland on paper officially left the European Union along with the rest of the United States. Kingdom
The half-in-half-out status angers those who see it as a wedge driven between the people of Northern Ireland and the rest of their countrymen in Britain.
“It feels more like we’re leaving the UK than the EU,” said Harry Wick, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Fish Producers’ Organization. “We feel quite rejected by British politicians.”
After serving in the British Royal Navy for 20 years and living in England for many years, he describes himself as a proud trade union. But now he feels ‘like a second-class citizen’ and warns that those who ask for the association of Ireland will point to the Brexit agreement and say: ‘Look what Britain has done for you.’
“It will be difficult to argue that they do not have a point,” he said. “Brexit only emphasized our divisions.”
Customs officials check New Year’s vehicles at a ferry terminal in Northern Ireland, the first day after Britain completes its withdrawal from the European Union.
(Peter Morrison / Associated Press)
Whether Johnson can limit the build-up of discord and disillusionment in Scotland and Northern Ireland is an open question. His bluff, sometimes bombastic and often funny manner – patience or even enjoyment during difficult times – did not help him, as the United Kingdom threatened to start unraveling from its seams.
One of his predecessors as prime minister, Gordon Brown, said the country now faced a stark choice: to become a “reformed state” or a “failed state”. The four parts of the UK need to “urgently rediscover what holds them together” or endanger the union, Brown, a proud Scot, wrote in the Daily Telegraph this week.
The COVID 19 pandemic – which plunged Britain into a deep recession and claimed a death toll from the UK that exceeded 100,000 on Tuesday – also revealed how separate the different parts of the country are, despite Johnson ‘s efforts to promote solidarity by instilling a spirit of war.
Each of the four regions exercises control over its own health policy, which has led to lock-ins at different times in Britain, schools being left open in one part but not in another, and a patchwork quilt of rules and restrictions that Johnson made more look. only the leader of England, rather than the whole of the United Kingdom.
In Scotland, where about 5.5 million of the UK’s 67 million people live, Sturgeon is acknowledged to be more decisive and transparent, although her government has failed to tame the coronavirus. According to the Scottish Government, at least 5,888 Scots died on COVID-19 on Wednesday – a higher per capita rate than in the US
“The perception is that Sturgeon handled the pandemic much better than Boris Johnson,” said Devine, the historian. ‘The reality may be somewhat different, but it does not matter. The perception is that she did an excellent job. They can not stand Johnson here. ”
Although the UK is not going to seize the chance tomorrow, and the immediate attention of people is being trained to get through the pandemic, political analyst Coree Brown Swan said the centrifugal forces felt in Scotland and Northern Ireland are likely to will not disappear.
“There’s a sense of union at stake … a struggle to articulate the cause for the union in a post-Brexit world,” said Brown Swan, a fellow at the Center for Constitutional Change in Edinburgh, said.
‘Everyone is committed to surviving the current crisis, but you are calling for an independent referendum [in Scotland] this year or next year, ”said Brown Swan. “If you see independence happening in Scotland, then Scotland becomes the turning point?”
Boyle is a special correspondent.