After Brexit: The State of the UK Union

Brexit shattered the ambiguity that had long sustained the unique construct that is the United Kingdom. As an assertion of British sovereignty, Brexit overrode the will of the people of Scotland and Northern Ireland. That broke the long tradition of territorial management of the United Kingdom, latterly formalised in a measure of self-government for the three smaller territories through devolution of substantial powers from 1999. But devolution had not resolved the existing challenges to the Union which were now reinforced by Brexit. The UK government’s response has oscillated between a hardline ‘muscular’ unionism and a more emollient ‘reasonableness’ agenda. This has left the Union in a state of unstable equilibrium, with considerable bodies of opinion in the three smaller territories dissatisfied with the status quo and with growing indifference to the future of the Union in England. Brexit has further undermined what was already a Union under pressure, leaving its future survival a more uncertain prospect.