The Break Up of Britain
Friday 27 January 2012By Nick Powell
A post-Scottish independence ‘United Kingdom of Southern Britain and Northern Ireland’ would not only be one of Europe’s most oddly named states but perhaps one of its most short-lived as well.
In the wake of David Cameron’s decision to veto a new European treaty, the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales have issued a joint demand to the British Prime Minister. Alex Salmond and Carwyn Jones wrote to 10 Downing Street ‘to show the strength of our mutual feeling regarding the exclusion of the devolved administrations from policy development and decision-making on issues of direct interest to our administrations, in particular with regard to European matters, many of which are devolved’.
They argue that the veto should not have been used without consulting the Scottish and Welsh governments. ‘We were not sufficiently sighted to be able to manage the potential consequences and risks of the UK’s recent policy decisions’. There is no reason to suppose that the two First Ministers do not have genuine concerns. Wales in particular is a major recipient of European Union structural funds and both countries have a major interest in the impact of reform to the Common Agricultural Policy and in Scotland’s case to the Common Fisheries Policy. A more immediate concern for both men is the near-certainty that a recession caused by a failure to resolve the Eurozone crisis would impact disproportionately on Scotland and Wales, which since the 1930s have suffered more than England whenever the British economy has faced a downturn.
But Alex Salmond and Carwyn Jones clearly have political agendas as well. One of them is after all the leader of the Scottish National Party, committed to holding a referendum on taking Scotland out of the United Kingdom and determined to win that vote when it comes. David Cameron insists that he remains committed to keeping the United Kingdom intact but perhaps not at any price. Not if that price is compromising his Eurosceptic policies. On the very day that the joint letter was issued in Edinburgh and Cardiff, there was an interesting insight into how these issues are viewed at the top of government in London.
As he prepared to leaved his post at the end of 2011, the head of the UK civil service, Sir Gus O’Donnell said, ‘over the next few years, there will be enormous challenges, such as whether to keep our kingdom united and how to make the EU operate in the best interests of its citizens’. Senior civil servants choose their words with precision. Sir Gus was suggesting that Britain has no choice but to continue to battle for its view of how the EU should operate, it was simply a question of how to go about it. But keeping Scotland in the United Kingdom was up for debate, it was a question of whether it should be done.
David Cameron’s party has just one Scottish member of parliament at Westminster. As the current joke has it, Conservative MPs in Scotland are outnumbered by giant pandas, thanks to Edinburgh Zoo’s two recent arrivals from China.
It does not seem so funny to Carwyn Jones, As Welsh First Minister, he is the most senior member of the British Labour party currently in government. A few days before signing up to the joint letter with Alex Salmond, he had written separately to the Prime Minister.
‘For the first time, I am now seriously concerned about whether the interests of Wales can be advanced effectively in Europe by the UK Government. For those of us who are committed to the United Kingdom, and the place of the UK within the European Union, this is a deeply concerning position to be in’.
He told a press conference that ‘in pandering to a relatively small number of Euro-sceptics, [David Cameron risks] I think in Scotland, where public opinion is particularly pro-European, [that] people are going to ask themselves whether they want to be in the EU or the UK. I think that’s unhelpful for those of us who want to see the UK continue’.
So what if Scotland does leave the UK? ‘We can’t carry on as we are now. The UK couldn’t just carry on with a bit of it gone. There would have to be a convention between England, Wales and Northern Ireland to discuss what the shape of the future state would be’.
Some close to the thinking at the top of the Welsh government have been warning privately for some time that Scottish independence would be a game-changer. Their preference is for ever-deepening devolution within the UK, partnered with Europe’s ever-closer union.
The idea of England dominating the UK without Scotland would turn them into Welsh nationalists overnight.