The reality of a disunited Kingdom

By Christopher White

In a month’s time, voters will be trooping into polling booths across the United Kingdom. There will be a myriad of choices open to them, and whilst some of the choices made will focus on local performance and abilities, many more will be attributed to the future of the Union.

This week we have considered the state of our nations from different perspectives. Rebecca Coleman looked at how English voters are beginning to carve out regional identities, Fraser Raleigh examined how the new Alba party could impact the Scottish elections, Sian Jones considered the implications of a Plaid and Labour alliance and today Ciaran Gill looks at the challenges facing Northern Ireland.

What is clear from these pieces is that once again, just seven years since the last Scottish Referendum, the future of the Union is again under threat.  Instead of being a ‘once in a generation’ vote as promised at the time, the old arguments are beginning to resurface, and even in Wales the prospect of an independence referendum does not seem so impossibly distant.

The last twenty years have seen a slow but steady drain of powers away from Westminster, from the creation of the national administrations and Parliaments to the increasing provisions that can be made locally.  For many voters, the covid pandemic has intensified this, with decisions made on who you can meet, which shops can open and how far you could travel not made in Westminster, but in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. It has thrown up odd situations, where First Ministers have competed with the Prime Minister to prove how different their actions can be.

Voters now have a much greater appreciation of what the differences in policy can actually mean, and a greater sense as well of what greater devolution can offer. Coupled with the sense of injustice that many voters in Wales and Scotland feel in the aftermath of Brexit, when many voted to remain in the EU, it is no surprise that independence is once again riding high.

The quest to counter this from the Prime Minister and others at Westminster has been haphazard at best. The Union Unit, initially led by former Conservative MP Luke Graham, and then adviser Oliver ‘Sonic’ Lewis, who lasted two weeks in the job, has been disbanded in favour of a cross-cutting Government Committee. Yet that committee has a significant task on its hands, for there is little real understanding of what the Union really offers, and it is an argument that needs to be made fast.

In this week’s State of the Union interview with Luke Graham, led by our very own Fraser Raleigh, it offers some fascinating insights into the sense of drift in recent years. Luke talks of the culture of “devolve and forget” in Whitehall, where Ministers, advisers and civil servants “simply wouldn’t consider Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland if the issue was devolved or transferred.”

Like the EU referendum remain campaign, the debate has focused principally around the risks of an independent Scotland, of how difficult it will be to survive on its own.  Yet the remain campaign found to its cost that the risk were often ignored as being too pessimistic, too unbelievable, and voters liked the prospect of taking back control. For voters in Scotland, decisions being made in Westminster against its wishes in the form of Brexit, and greater self-determination during the pandemic, are a heady mix. 

The Prime Minister has started to push the case for the Union much more in recent weeks. The UK government’s Integrated Review of Defence and Foreign Policy recently pledged to protect The Black Watch, create jobs and boost Scottish shipbuilding with a stream of new Type 26 destroyers and Type 31 and Type 32 destroyers, which was a promising start. Less convincingly, perhaps, was the decision to order UK government buildings to fly the Union flag every day of the year.

Unionists may find that they are lucky in the short term. The internecine warfare between Nicola Sturgeon and her former mentor Alex Salmond may hamper the independence campaign in Scotland at just the right moment to stave off a demand for another referendum, and in Wales, even if Plaid have a greater role in power sharing with Labour, any referendum would take time to agree. That time is going to be needed, because unless Unionists can convincingly make the case for what the Union is for, they will slowly and surely lose the argument for preserving its existence.