A tour is poor substitute for the truly systemic challenge the union faces this year: a no trade deal Brexit in December. That event is highly likely to exacerbate the breakdown of consent for the union in Scotland by reaffirming the country’s apparent impotence within the whole.
It is possible that the Prime Minitser faces a choice between a no deal and a better chance of keeping the union together but that he can’t have both.
Many in Westminster often seem to forget that the UK is a multi-national state and don’t want to recognise the strain the Brexit process has put it under. As a multi-national state, its maintenance requires careful calibration, especially on big structural issues...
...and there seems to be v little willingness to countenance how to conduct that calibration- that the majority of 2019 solves everything. It doesn’t and it won’t, precisely because it was a majority which essentially excluded Scotland.
Westminster has had 5 years from 2015 GE to come up with a constitutional answer to following problems
-SNP dominance at Westminster
-breakdown of Westminster parties (esp Labour) at Holyrood
-Apparent Scottish powerlessness within union (Brexit)
It hasn’t done so.
-SNP dominance at Westminster
-breakdown of Westminster parties (esp Labour) at Holyrood
-Apparent Scottish powerlessness within union (Brexit)
It hasn’t done so.
Now it may be too late. Assuming the 2021 Holyrood elections are as much of a rout for the SNP as it appears right now that they will be, it’s going to require real statecraft and big thinking from all the unionist parties, not just hoping the problem goes away.
