Brexit Britain’s greatest test could be its ability to survive

Photographer: Emily Macinnes / Bloomberg

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

Whether it’s a multi-billion pound dream or a display of ambition befitting the post-Brexit era, a feasibility study is underway as part of the assessment of how to better bond the United Kingdom and its four constituent countries. A more immediate concern could be whether the link could ever connect two independent states that are no longer part of the UK

While Britain marks 100 days since turning its back on the European Union, battles have broken out with the continent over issues from customs controls to vaccination shots and financial services.

Tensions at home are haunting a more existential conflict, one that will determine whether Johnson’s goal of hitting the world should be under the banner of a revived ‘Britain’ relegated to a more modest ‘Global England’.

Scotland will hold elections to Parliament in Edinburgh on May 6, which are cast as a vote on whether the nation has the right – or the need for – another vote on its constitutional future. Polls suggest the pro-independence could sweep Scottish National Party to a majority, setting a high bar given the proportional electoral system, and pushing for its demands for a second referendum on the UK split

In Northern Ireland, grievances are held over the separate treatment of the British mainland in the Brexit deal between London and Brussels, and the province’s bitterly divided past is reappear as a result. More than 70 police officers were injured in a week of riots by pro-British loyalists dropping gasoline bombs. Polls suggest a notable shift in sentiment for a region so long dominated by its Unionist community, with a majority now saying they want a vote on reunification with the Republic of Ireland within five years.

Even in Wales, which unlike Scotland or Northern Ireland voted for Brexit with England, support for independence has 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 will have to share power with the nationalist Plaid Cymru Party. Plaid has promised to vote on Welsh independence within five years.

There has been speculation for decades about the collapse of the three-century-old union, certainly long before Brexit was part of the vernacular. In themselves, the developments in each of the three countries do not necessarily represent a revolutionary change, but speak of changing cultural identities and varying degrees of political dissatisfaction with the center of power in London.

All things considered, it’s hard to ignore a growing sense that things are inexorably coming to a head, whether it’s shrinking or strengthening the union, and that Brexit has given those forces more freedom of choice.

“But before Brexit, the union would be relatively safe, but I’m not so sure right now,” he said Matt Qvortrup, a professor of political science at Coventry University who served as special adviser on British constitutional affairs. Change “won’t be the day after tomorrow, but give it 10 years.”

The challenge for Johnson, who was the driving force behind the successful campaign to drop the EU in what has been termed as an attempt to regain British sovereignty, is how to sear the political wounds at home. His dilemma is compounded by the fact that his Conservatives rule in Westminster, but not in Belfast, Edinburgh or Cardiff, where separate parties hold sway, reflecting voters’ differing regional preferences in a process known as devolution.

Read more: 100 days of Brexit: Was it the worst thing when ‘Project Fear’ was warned?

The most powerful of these decentralized governments is in Scotland, where it manages most of the policies that matter in everyday life, from health and education to transport and justice. The UK has control over foreign affairs, defense and macroeconomic policies, among others.

Johnson has so far refused to give the SNP-led government the legal permission needed for a subsequent referendum to be watertight, saying the 2014 vote was a one-generation event. Scots then voted 55% versus 45% to stay in the UK, although there was no idea at the time that the UK was about to leave the EU.

The focus now, says Johnson, should be to rebuild together from the pandemic and that constitutional matters are an unwanted distraction. Johnson’s Conservative Leader in Scotland, Douglas Ross, says that “it is recovery or a referendum. We cannot do both. He has called on other opposition parties to work together in some electoral districts to stop the nationalists.

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

Another landslide from the SNP – the party has been in power since 2007 – would escalate the deadlock with London and if Edinburgh stepped up its demands could scare investors and hit the pound. There is division within Johnson’s party as to whether his government should simply continue to ignore Scotland’s calls for another attempt at independence or to buy time and offer enough money or more powers in the hope that the matter will disappear.

The risk is that it will toil instead. And the longer the dispute continues, the more likely it is to be resolved by demographics. Support for independence is greatest among young people and the Scottish electoral age is 16.

In any case, Scots have never warmed to the Eton-educated Johnson, whose clumsy attitude of the upper class is juxtaposed with the down-to-earth sobriety of the Scottish leader, Nicola Sturgeon.

The crux of Sturgeon’s argument for a new independence vote is typically direct: Brexit has changed the game. No district in Scotland voted to leave the EU in 2016, but it still had to leave with the rest of the UK. The years of bickering leading up to Brexit on January 31, 2020, only hardened divisions, with the decentralized administrations all claiming to be sidelined.

Some of that anti-Brexit sentiment has turned into support for the independence cause. According to an strategy paper prepared for the Conservatives and reviewed by Bloomberg in October, the concern is that there aren’t enough pro-Brexit voters to counter them.

Emily Gray, running pollster Ipsos MORI in Scotland, says Brexit was crucial for the gradual increasing support for independence. The result is “significant doubts in Scotland about the future of the union,” she said. “More than half of Scots expect the UK to cease to exist in its current form in five years.”

Johnson seems to have a strong case for the union in the form of the successful rollout of vaccines in the UK to date. Still, Sturgeon, not Johnson, is the face of the pandemic struggle in Scotland, and the Prime Minister says Johnson’s approach to Covid-19, which records the highest death toll in Europe, has highlighted the need for full autonomy.

The latest Ipsos MORI poll, held between March 29 and April 4, predicted that the SNP would take 70 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament. As the pro-independence Greens see a jump in support, the momentum for a referendum appears to be building. A few other polls have shown the SNP to fall short, but none have predicted a pro-union majority.