“I don’t mind if Scotland breaks away.”
The words chilled me. I was talking over lunch in London to a businessman close to the Conservative Party. It was six months before the EU referendum of 2016, and, as an argument against Brexit, I raised the risk of Scotland voting again for independence and breaking up the United Kingdom. (The Scots had voted against independence in 2014, when Brexit was not on the agenda.) My interlocutor said he was not bothered. The Scottish economy was tiny, he said, the Scots would have to sink or swim, and the English would do fine without them.
For three years, the main line of the anti-Brexit argument in the UK has been that leaving the EU will badly harm the economy. A bigger danger, of another Scottish independence referendum and a messy breakup of the UK, has lurked further back in the shadows.
Only now is the alarm being raised. Former prime minister Gordon Brown is warning starkly not just of the ambitions of the Scottish National Party, which advocates independence, but of the narrow “English nationalism” of Tories who, like my businessman, would be quite happy to see Scotland go. Even if he does not admit it, Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy is leading Tory England in that direction.
The breakup in the 1990s of two union states, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, is a lesson in how history can speed up and dissolve a country in almost the blink of an eye. In both cases, the decisive factor was the sudden withdrawal of support for the union by the leaders of the ‘big brother’ nation: the Russians, who dominated the Soviet Union, and the Czechs, the bigger nation of Czechoslovakia.
The Soviet Union could have lived on beyond 1991. In March of that year, then Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev held a referendum on preserving the USSR in a looser federation in which a strong majority (more than 77 percent of all Soviet citizens who took part and 73 percent of voters in Russia) voted in favor. Six republics— Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Moldova—boycotted the vote and could have achieved independence in time on their own with Western support, but the rest of the union still looked quite solid.
Lest we forget, it was then Russian president Boris Yeltsin, desperate to oust Gorbachev and the Soviet Communist Party, who dealt the killer blow in December 1991 together with the leaders of Belarus and Ukraine, with a triple declaration of independence. Yeltsin’s maneuver meant that the union lost its core member and could only be dissolved.
A few months later, in July 1992, Václav Klaus became prime minister of the Czech Republic, one of the two halves of Czechoslovakia. Vladimír Mečiar, his counterpart in Slovakia, was pushing for independence. Together, the two men oversaw the quick and unexpected dissolution of Czechoslovakia within six months. There was no referendum. Had there been, the people would undoubtedly have voted to keep the country together. In an opinion poll taken in September 1992, only 37 percent of Slovaks and 36 percent of Czechs said they would vote for a split.
Klaus consistently said he regretted the end of Czechoslovakia. His actions suggested otherwise. A free markets zealot, he regarded industrialized Slovakia as an economic burden, holding the Czech Republic back. Once he could not get the deal he wanted with Mečiar, Klaus pursued a divorce with ruthless determination.
Could another Boris—Boris Johnson—do for the United Kingdom what Boris Yeltsin and Václav Klaus did for their unions? In his first speech as prime minister, Johnson pledged his loyalty to “the awesome foursome” of the UK: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
That masks the reality that Johnson was elected leader of a party whose members are now overwhelmingly English and worship the cause of Brexit with religious devotion. In a YouGov poll in June, an astonishing 63 percent of Conservative Party members said they would not mind Scotland leaving the UK if this was the price to pay for Brexit. (The corresponding figure for Northern Ireland was 59 percent.)
The parliamentary arithmetic is also compelling. The Conservative Party currently has 311 seats out of 650 in the UK Parliament. Given its current ideology and demographic bias, it is unlikely ever to win a majority again. But if Scotland were taken out of the equation, the Conservatives would have 298 seats out of 591 and a magic formula for keeping power.
In Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Johnson may see a (much more benign) Scottish Mečiar, pushing for a Slovak-style divorce from the UK. Where Scotland might begin, Northern Ireland might follow—with much more mayhem. As Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole has persuasively argued, the main Irish republican party Sinn Féin appears to be welcoming the potential “Great Disruption” if a no-deal Brexit would cause to pursue their ambitions of a united Ireland.
The point is not to compare the democratic UK with the oppressive USSR. It is to say that a union state—free or unfree, decades- or centuries-old—needs renewing by an act of faith by every new generation. And that a state breakup will always be more traumatic and difficult than the splitters imagine.
The end of the USSR is not an event to regret, but it still caused huge economic disruption, territorial conflicts, and personal tragedies. As for Czechoslovakia, some Brexiteers will argue that its peaceful breakup is an example of how the same can be done for the UK—and also for leaving the EU.
But there was economic hardship and personal grief for millions who had mixed Czech and Slovak identity. What’s more, the reason why the Czech Republic and Slovakia have got on well and thrived is because both aspired, successfully, to do the very opposite of what Boris Johnson wants for his country—to join the European Union.
Comments(6)
For time immemorial the electoral system of the UK has been designed on a 2 party basis. The"First Passed the Post" system has always resulted in "minority" governments. Ruling with less than 40% of the vote has created a Conservative Elite that has ignored this inequality! May be after this divorce England will return to a Democratic rule!
Boris will cut his nose to spite his face! I for myself will move up to Scotland to remain in the EU; it will have more individual liberties than those in England under Boris!
“I don’t mind if Scotland breaks away”, yet this will make Scotland a premier nuclear power as HMNB Clyde is home of the nuclear submarines armed with Trident missiles. It is hard to believe that Scotland desires that, but in strategic terms this will be a major disruption. It is difficult to agree on adding the USSR to the discussion, in the sense that the Russian Empire was not a union, it was an Empire, like the Ottoman, British and French (although called Republic), multinational, seeing the Danube as its natural border. The fine connoisseur of Eastern Europe mentions the territorial conflicts triggered by the collapse of the USSR, with Transnistria periodically referenced on CNN. It is difficult not to contemplate in shock the end of Czechoslovakia, and unfortunately will never know what Svejk would have said about Milton Friedman; Capek’s War with the Newts, could it be a precursor, a Newt swimming in the Vltava in a velvet swimming suit? With all the backstop talk, as the author warns, Northern Ireland might follow. What is hard to fathom is that “The Troubles” might return, which is unconceivable in the sense that Europe will never forget its tribal roots. The “I don’t mind if Scotland breaks away” gentleman has probably in mind a future where England will challenge the British Virgin Islands in financials. However, throughout Brexit the UK financial industry, which could be severely affected by Brexit, deal or no deal, wasn’t central to the discussion (was it because this is London?). Whichever way the US should get a free-trade deal with the UK as soon as possible, if no deal happens; there is plenty of US organic farming, if GMO’s are a concern; NHS, financial industry that is a different story and Lighthizer is a tough negotiator; India will request free movement of people; CHOGM countries, it will not be easy. However, what is catastrophic isn’t Brexit, it is the way it was and is done. A close inspection of the Magna Carta shows that it doesn’t talk about prorogation. It is inconceivable that the British Parliament might have to cross the Channel and assemble at the Jeu de Paume and take a 1789 like oath, we are not far from that. Sometimes the EU is equated to the Habsburg Empire. Vienna produced one the finest European intellectuals, Stefan Zweig. On 02/23 1942 the Zweigs, chased to Brazil by a Europe at its darkest, committed suicide, “despairing at the future of Europe and its culture”. Somebody should add Brexit to “Sternstunden der Menschheit”.
The other difficulty is that the break up of “The United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland” might start to facilitate UK-Exit and continue as a consequence. If the principle of self-determination can be used by people living in Northern Ireland, to overcome a border issue dating from 1921 and rejoin The EU, it can be used by everyone else including people living in England and just those living in Londinium. (There are quite a few ways to define London). EU membership for any of the parts of The ex-UK other than NI is a different ball game altogether. Scotland as a sovereign state, would have to seek international recognition and then apply to join The European Union, via Article 49 of The TEU. - “Then there’s the problem that the winding, 300-mile-long frontier defined as the border of the new province of Northern Ireland by the British government in 1921 was in no sense a natural border. There is no mountain range or body of water dividing Ireland in two parts, there is just a line on the map, hastily drawn by retreating colonial civil servants.......”
It may happen that the UK will break into bits and pieces, this will be more likely if a no-deal eventuates and the UK economy goes really bad. This begs the question to the SNP in particular why would they not hope this scenario happens as it would make there goal of independance a lot more certain. Also the Labour party would more likely win a general election if the tories have to take the blame for all that is bad the befalls the UK. These two political strange bedfellows would be deemed the messiah's of Scotland and rump UK and could rejoin the EU as two seperate or more economies, harder for England though. Unless they are scared that the tories will succeed in creating a Tiger economy that brings riches and higher living standards to all, this in my opinion is the real question for all the political players, as well as the british people.
A Withdrawal Agreement would only simplify the start of a very long, uncertain process. Phrases like “no-deal”, “clean-break” and “hard-border” and neologisms like “Brexit” start off as a convenience but are very dangerous. “Britex” got replaced by “Brexit” but only the whole of The UK can leave The EU, “UK-exit”. The political system, widely exported by The British Empire, has a bias towards two major factions (or parties), either side of a divide, even if the divide has to be invented. I think The Labour Party has most to lose in the general election pencilled in for 28th November 2019. Under The Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011, The Government would need a two thirds majority to call an election about five weeks in the future, hence the date. A “vote of no confidence” in the current government can be tabled by any MP and only needs a simple majority, but an election is not guaranteed and couldn’t happen for about seven weeks. The worst case for The EU Council might be granting an extension to Article 50 and there not being an election, because nothing would change. The European Union Referendum Act 2015 (c. 36) has been looking like one of the longest suicide notes in history for some time. The EU Council are constrained by the 268 words (English language version) of Article 50. Back in 1973, when light sweet crude began to flow out of The Brent Oil Field, The Scots would have needed an independent nuclear threat to obtain independence, UK Peak Oil was around 1999 and the production of both oil and natural gas has collapsed. I was born in Singapore in 1966, I am a UK citizen but have nothing to prove it apart from a piece of paper signed by a British Army major. I moved from England to Wales in 1974 and I am in the process of moving to Scotland. I don’t consider a sovereign Wales or Scotland economically viable so I am on the horns of a dilemma.
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