Brexit and now the effects of the pandemic mean the survival of the union is not guaranteed

Seduced by the prospect of cut-price restaurant meals in August and slashed stamp duty until the spring, you may have missed something the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, just slipped in to his latest big-spending speech in the House of Commons. You can bet, though, that it was heard by the people who were supposed to hear it, starting with Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.

Between his general preamble and his list of specific measures, Sunak said this: “This crisis has highlighted the special bond which holds our country together. Millions of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been protected by the UK government’s economic interventions – and they will be supported by today’s Plan for Jobs. No nationalist can ignore the undeniable truth: this help has only been possible because we are a United Kingdom.”

So there, Sturgeon. Where would Scotland be in this crisis without all the largesse being shovelled northwards from London? Think about it, before you lobby for a new independence referendum. The government in Westminster, or at least this government in Westminster, is going to play hardball. They are not softies in the David Cameron mould.

Well, maybe that warning will give the SNP pause for thought, as well as those advocating more quietly for Welsh independence or those in Northern Ireland who aspire to a united Ireland. But there are many more reasons why it might not.

First, economics is not all. Arguments about the pound, the soundness of the banks and declining reserves of North Sea oil may have helped to sway waverers during Scotland’s independence referendum campaign in 2014, but identity and culture and the power to run your own affairs count for at least as much, and often more. There is also demography. In Scotland’s referendum, older voters were most hostile to independence, though the very youngest were less enthusiastic than the politicians who engineered votes for 16-year-olds might have hoped. Something similar would apply to support in the North for a united Ireland. The direction is for separation from the UK.

Second, there is Brexit. While many – including, it seemed, Cameron – assumed that the Scottish rejection of independence would be replicated two years later in a status-quo vote in the UK for Remain, the referendum produced not only the opposite result, but the division many had most feared: between Leave-voting England, and Remain-voting Scotland and Northern Ireland. Wales voted Leave, but more narrowly than England.

The predictable effect of the Scotland result was to trigger calls for a new independence referendum. Two years before, the referendum had been treated as a once in a generation vote; now, the context had changed. In fact, though, it was Northern Ireland where the union seemed most immediately under threat, as voting patterns suggested the growing appeal of a united Ireland. Either way, it seemed, the price of Brexit could well be the break-up of the UK.

What no one could have forecast, however – and this is the third consideration – was the coronavirus pandemic, or rather its fallout. As in the European Union, health in the UK is a devolved responsibility – for all that a virus respects no borders. And the separate authorities made clear early on that they would not hesitate to act on their own.

Initially, it seemed that Boris Johnson wanted Westminster’s writ to run throughout the UK. For whatever reason, however – because he or his advisers feared the destructive effects of a public standoff with Scotland, because he needed to minimise all distractions, or quite simply, perhaps, because he, several ministers, his chief adviser and his chief civil servant all fell ill – the separate national authorities asserted themselves in a way that had never really been seen before.

Not only that, but – mostly – they did themselves no political harm at all. Northern Ireland showed a pattern of infections and rates of fatality more akin to those in the Republic of Ireland, potentially weakening what had been seen as an obstacle to Irish unity: the North’s disparaging view of the health service south of the border.

The first ministers of Scotland and Wales, for their part, became visible elsewhere in the UK from their daily press conferences and their readiness to pursue their own policies. Nicola Sturgeon, in particular, was widely lauded for the incisiveness of the Scottish government’s approach, which was widely (and perhaps unfairly) contrasted with the bumbling and contradictions observed in London. The horrendous death rate in England hardly recommended following London’s lead either.

In fact, Scotland and Wales suffered many of the same difficulties as England – in shortages of equipment and the proportion of deaths in care homes – and there are many reasons why their death rates may have been lower, the uniqueness of London being one. The impression left, however – and impressions, after all, matter in politics – is that the devolved authorities have acquitted themselves generally better than either the UK government or NHS England.

This has produced another plus. The devolved governments have been seen, almost for the first time, to behave as plausible national governments. They have enforced lockdown in different ways, opened up different facilities in different times and in some cases even controlled borders. They have shown this is possible, and neither the UK government nor the neighbouring English counties have challenged their authority to do what they have done.

The longer-term effects could be far-reaching, though less perhaps in Wales. In Scotland, a new independence referendum is back on the agenda, with latest, post-pandemic polls, showing a majority wanting a new referendum and a smaller majority, but still a majority (between 52 and 54 per cent) in favour of independence. With a new government finally agreed in the Republic of Ireland and power-sharing back in the North, a bit more of the edge has been taken off relations between the two parts of Ireland. This could presage easier coexistence, or it could – as the focus returns to Brexit – be the prelude to something more.

Which leaves England as the fourth reason why the union might not endure. Through the whole Brexit campaign and its aftermath, English nationalism was – to the surprise of many – quiescent. Even at the Brexit night festivities in London’s Parliament Square, union flags outnumbered the St George’s Cross many times over. Boris Johnson has also seemed a far more vociferous champion of the union than Theresa May ever was.

But Johnson’s words may be deceptive. Even before winning the 2019 election, Johnson had ditched May’s parliamentary alliance with the Northern Ireland DUP and accepted a customs border down the Irish Sea. Willingly or not, he has watched the devolved governments steer their own course through the pandemic. Money has been provided, it would appear, without strings – in the hope, perhaps, that Edinburgh, for one, draws the appropriate conclusion.

Whether it will do so, however, is another matter. And the signs are, increasingly, that the UK – meaning, for practical purposes, England – would not care. A year ago a YouGov poll showed that the attraction of the union seemed to be fading even for those who supposedly supported it most, with a majority of Conservative Party supporters in England, saying that, if forced to choose between Brexit and the union, they would choose Brexit any day. A recent poll suggests that this sentiment is even stronger today. Support for an independent England meanwhile is running at 49 per cent among Conservative supporters and 35 per cent across voters in England as a whole.

Now, it is possible that the union will endure, perhaps at the cost of more money and more power spun off from Westminster. As of today, a united Ireland also looks an earlier prospect than the secession of Scotland, and could prompt less English regret. But the divergent response to the pandemic has shown, even more graphically than the Brexit vote, that the survival of the union is not guaranteed, and there may be more shape-shifting yet.