Is the UK Destined to Break Apart?

From the river to the sea let scotland wales and ireland be free those ladies gentlemen other words of a porn star named u.s representative randy fine did i read that right a few moments later porn star named oh i did not read that right those ladies gentlemen the words of porn star named u.s representative randy fine responding to the united kingdom placing

Sanctions on israeli settlers the tweet went viral with some americans and israelis calling for a four-state solution to the united kingdom thankfully for us brits randy fine has little impact on what our little damp island does but the reason we're bringing his trolling up now is because it landed at the same time that a much more noteworthy story broke

Last week the first ministers from scotland wales and northern ireland sat down together in cardiff to sign a pledge to cooperate on seceding from the uk for the first time in british history the heads of all three devolved governments are explicitly advocating for the nation's breakup the big questions now of course are whether they really have the power to

Do so and whether the uk really is now headed for its own four-state solution ganging up the idea of a four-state solution only exploded last week when the telegraph broke the story that nationalist first ministers from across the uk were set to convene in cardiff to work on their common goal of leaving the uk now it's not every day the country has a whole

Political convention plotting to break it apart much less one consisting of heads of government but the uk is not your average everyday country it is at its core a kingdom of separate countries united under a single monarchy legislature i mean the clue is kind of in the name scotland wales and northern ireland all have highly devolved local parliaments with

England being the sole outlier with no national legislature and yes apologies to these six cornish nationalists watching we did indeed just lump you in with the rest of england what can i say devon would be heartbroken to lose you while northern ireland is its own special case the idea behind handing over greater devolved power to scotland and wales was

Ostensibly to make a breakup of the union less likely but ever since the scottish parliament first convened in 1999 demands for a dissolution of the union have only gotten louder and while wales long resisted this trend the shock victory of the nationalists in the senate elections earlier this year has paved the way for cardiff to follow suit the three

Nations also got a recent boost from an unlikely source prime minister andy burnham at prime minister's questions last week scottish national party mp chris law pointed out that the good friday agreement gives northern ireland the ability to leave the uk and reunify with the republic of ireland while scotland enjoys no such provision even if the majority of

Scots would back such a proposal that in law's eyes was an outrage and he wanted to know if the pm shared a sense of injustice surprisingly burnham responded that the situation with scotland was quote exactly the same situation northern ireland and that if public opinion shifted enough toward independence holding an independence referendum would simply have

To be considered later that day apparently realizing just how close the polls on the topic are in scotland he retracted his comments adding that another referendum was off limits but it was too late by then snp politicians in westminster and hollywood alike had leapt on his statements with scottish first minister john swinney writing to burnham to ask for a

Legal mechanism for holding future referendums to be developed and then came the intervention of the u.s president ahead of the cardiff meeting donald trump decided to throw his weight behind irish reunification boyd by all this attention the leaders of the snp sinn fein and plied cumry signed a memorandum pledging to cooperate more closely in pushing for

Future referendums now before you start dusting off your irish trickler donning your kilt and doing your damnedest to learn how to pronounce anything in welsh we should inject a quick dose of realism here at this stage the memorandum is mostly just symbolic there currently exists no legal mechanism for the establishment of a good friday agreement in the

World of wales the cardiff meeting is subject to a lot of conditions that we'll dig into a bit later for now the cardiff meeting is best understood as a way of signaling intent rather than anything that might lead to immediate changes still that's not to say there are no solid agreements being forged between the devolved governments the same day as the

Cardiff meet a separate agreement was formalized between the governments of wales and scotland under its terms each of their first ministers will meet at least once a year with ministers and civil servants increasingly set to work together to develop domestic policy we've already seen that come to fruition on the issue of child poverty where wales has begun

To pilot its own version of scotland's child payment system even so the obstacles to actual independence remain enormous and while israelis on social media may love the idea of a four-state solution and american presidents might enjoy promoting the idea of a unified ireland there are major structural issues that stand in the way not least that in at least

Two of the three nations polls show that there are a lot of people who don't know about the cardiff meeting the populations don't want to break away from the united kingdom at all easier said than done while it may have all been smiles and waves coming from the leaders in cardiff the other day we're still quite a ways away from any of their aspirations

Actually happening scotland northern ireland and wales are after all three different countries and they each have very different paths towards possible independence scotland is the most obvious place to start first because it's the one where independence polls best with remaining in the uk currently leading by 47 to 43 percent and second because it's the

Only one of the three which has ever previously held a referendum despite failing by a 55 to 45 margin the die-hard nationalists never really gave up within a few years figures in the scottish national party were calling for another vote which was boosted by the brexit referendum in 2016. scotland and northern ireland voted to remain in the eu while england

And wales voted to leave which as far as the scottish nationalists were concerned gave them a legitimate argument for another vote support for breaking away has fluctuated over the years since but polling from august puts the pro-independence vote slightly ahead though the undecideds would likely be the ones to tip the scales one way or another the problem

For scotland is that at some level it doesn't matter if yes is pulling ahead by two points or twenty their only path to getting another vote is if westminster grants them one and since the 2014 vote no uk government has been particularly inclined to do so when it comes to getting permission the snp strategy seems to be using the results from the scottish

Parliamentary election back in may to show london that scots want another go at it in that election pro-independence parties won 56 percent of seats though the snp itself came up short of a majority and actually lost support from its 2021 performance despite that swinney's argument is that the parliamentary election was effectively a de facto referendum on

Independence one in which a majority of scots voted to break away but it is worth pointing out that voters were also weighing in on a whole host of other issues and while the snp and pro-independence greens combined took 56 of the vote their platforms included far more for voters than just a picture of mel gibson in braveheart screaming freedom northern

Ireland's in the opposite position from scotland they are the only member of the uk that actually has a path to a referendum enshrined in legislation as part of the good friday agreement that ended the troubles the uk secretary of state for northern ireland is required to call for a referendum if he believes that a majority would likely support reunification

With the republic of ireland exactly how he's supposed to arrive at that conclusion was deliberately made pretty vague but the important part here is that sinn fein does not need westminster to vote in agreement the obstacle for the irish republicans is much more basic there simply aren't enough people in northern ireland willing to vote yes support for

Reunification currently polls in the mid-30s which is hardly the mandate that sinn fein would like although it has risks and over the last decade or so rising from about 25 in 2020. the problem for sinn fein is that this progress seems to have stalled out rather than proceeding on some unstoppable march towards a majority it's more or less oscillated between

35 and 40 percent which seems to be the current ceiling now 35 does not mean that 65 percent are opposed there's a double digit number of people who are variously undecided or unsure if the question of what country you want to be a member of sounds like it should be relatively cut and dry well we hear you but when it comes to northern ireland there's a lot

At play divisions between unionist and republican communities still run deep so even if a young person in northern ireland might think they could be better off reunifying actually crossing the line to saying that they want it out loud is quite an obstacle then there's the fact that it's not only those in northern ireland who would vote on reunification

Voters in the republic of ireland would also have to agree now it might seem like a no-brainer that the irish would vote for reunification there's a strong ability that this would be the case however it's worth remembering that there's a difference between supporting something in the abstract and actually putting an x next to it on a ballot paper imagine a

Hypothetical future where say a super majority of 65 or 70 percent of those in northern ireland vote to rejoin the republic well that still leaves 30 of the population who are almost certainly protestant likely hate the idea of joining ireland with an undying passion and would probably make it their life's mission to reverse the results would importing

Hundreds of thousands of voters implacably opposed to irish unity really be all that smooth sailing for dublin maybe but it could also bring with it a host of challenges that might make irish voters think twice last but not least is the country of wales which has the steepest uphill battle for independence unlike scotland which can point to polling that puts

Independence almost in reach and northern ireland which has the legal mechanism for breaking away from london but lacks the public support to trigger it wales lacks both support for independence remains well short of majority usually placing around 30 even if plied does manage to boost that number by 20 points to be within striking distance of majority

There'd be no better off than scotland in terms of actually being able to hold a referendum that's not to say that the welsh independence movement doesn't have anything going for it plied cymru managed to place first earlier this year and currently leads the devolved government but as is the case with scotland it's not really a situation where you can equate

One-to-one a vote for pro-independence parties with a vote for independence itself in wales especially the 2026 result was unusual the result of a total collapse in support for welsh labor combined with a real fear among the left and center that the right-wing reform uk might win this almost certainly resulted in tactical voting for plied as the only party

Capable of stopping them rather than a surge in support for independence still while we spent this chapter throwing cold water on the uk's breakup just because the cadet editions are not in place right now does not mean that they never will be and now time for one last pivot where we examine the long-term picture and ask could it ever happen the long game

The key thing to remember in all of this is that the united kingdom is supposed to be a voluntary union margaret thatcher hardly remembered for a soft touch when it came to the integrity of the country wrote that scots had an undoubted right to national self-determination while her successor john major also acknowledged that no nation could be held

Irrevocably in a union against its will and the uk already has a historical example of what happens when you try to force a member of the union to stay roughly a century ago westminster fought and lost a war of independence in ireland committing war crimes and ruining its international reputation in the process now that's obviously an extreme example and no

One is advocating sending the black and tans to scotland but the self-determination argument is a powerful one in the nationalists favor and this has become even more the case since the referendum granted in 2014 which then prime minister david cameron labeled as a once in a generation event while the unionists won by double digits it set the precedent that

Westminster should allow such referendums if they gain enough public support that argument gained significant traction after brexit the scots had after all voted to stay in a uk that was still a part of the eu and the snp could argue that the outcome might have been different if the choice had been independent in europe or part of the uk but outside the eu

More importantly once in a generation was inherently super vague language which becomes harder to enforce the further away from 2014 we get it was never written into law in the first place and given that some 844 000 scots roughly 18 percent of the country's voting age population were too young to participate in the 2014 referendum there's an increasing

Argument to be made that a new generation is already here that more than anything else might be the true legacy of 2014 today cameron may have settled the matter for a few years but in doing so he helped establish referendums as the legitimate way to address these questions the argument from here on is less about whether scotland can ever be allowed to leave

And more about what degree of public support or how much time needs to pass before westminster should be willing to give it another go if scotland or northern ireland get the chance to break away and ultimately choose to do so they will almost certainly become a strength test for the other two if scotland leaves and things go relatively well it becomes much

Easier to apply to point north and say let's do that as well on the other hand if it creates some economic chaos and political upheaval it might dull support for independence elsewhere i mean there's reason that a lot of formerly anti-eu parties in europe have switched from let's leave the union to let's just bash brussels since 2016. brexit gave them a

Salutary lesson on the consequences of jumping off a life raft made of vague promises and even vaguer hopes but brexit also offers another lesson for nationalist parties you only need to win once and only by a narrow margin to implement a hardcore no return star breakup this is important for scotland in particular where support for independence sometimes

Narrowly leads and sometimes narrowly falls behind should another referendum be called brexit shows that you don't need to convince a vast swath of the nation to back your vision you just need to convince a vast swath of the nation to back your vision you just need to convince a tiny subset of undecideds to lend you their vote eek out a 52-48 win and then

Declare a thumping mandate from the people that can never be challenged this gives pro-independence parties an enormous amount of room to operate they can run on platforms that include a whole host of issues that aren't even particularly related to independence which they can keep as something that they believe in but which they'll only implement on

Independence and unlike in a regular election where voters can punish a party that lies to them and that lacks ballot there's no real mechanism for undoing a narrow decision to split ultimately then it seems clear that britain is not staring down some imminent dissolution much less a four-state solution regardless of what randy fine might hope for and

There's no guarantee a breakup of the uk will ever happen particularly given the obstacles the nationalists face in belfast hollyrood and cardiff but the bigger lesson here is that it's growing more difficult to dismiss the possibility outright even brits are beginning to doubt the longevity of their union an ipsos poll released this week found that only 55

Expected the uk to still exist in its current form in just five years which falls to under a quarter of the population once you go 20 years out maybe britain despite the doom and gloom manages to tough it out or maybe one of these movements eventually generates enough enthusiasm to finally break away either way the question of whether the uk stays united

Looks increasingly like one that will hang over british politics for a very long time to come thank you for watching you can find me on twitter @mcbritish_official and on instagram @mcbritish_official. thanks for watching!