Brexit has put the integrity of the United Kingdom under greater pressure than it has been in generations. Scotland and Northern Ireland, which both voted to Remain, are nonetheless being dragged out of Europe. A 55-45 win for Unionists in 2014 risks being overturned as the SNP pushes for a second Scottish independence referendum. Meanwhile the idea of Irish reunification is more live than ever as Johnson’s deal carves Northern Ireland off from mainland GB.
Can the Union survive? I sat down with Philip Rycroft, formerly one of Britain’s most senior civil servants, to get his take. From 2017 to 2019 he was permanent secretary in the Brexit department, making him the top-ranking official overseeing the government’s exit preparations (he left on 29th March, the first intended Brexit day). He was also head of the UK governance group in the cabinet office and prior to that served in a number of senior posts including in Scotland for many years, leading work on enterprise and education.
Sitting in the Prospect offices on a rainy Autumn evening he discussed the dangerous constitutional territory ahead.
Was he worried what Brexit could mean for the future of the UK? “Very much so. There’s no doubt that Brexit has been a profound shock to the United Kingdom, which was already under stress. Two parts of a four-part union voted to stay in the EU, but are likely now to be taken out of the EU essentially against their will.”
Does Brexit make Scottish independence more likely? “I think the chances of a second independence referendum have certainly gone up. If you look at the polls at the moment, Scotland is very much a nation divided. The numbers are at pretty much 50/50. So anybody trying to call the result of a referendum campaign that might be held in the next two or three years is being very brave indeed.”
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, has pushed independence relentlessly since the EU referendum and the demand is growing ever louder. Labour has said it would reluctantly grant another indyref in government. The last vote was only in 2014 but “the facts have changed, the world has changed. And that is giving people pause for thought in both Scotland and Northern Ireland… about their future in the UK.”
Moreover, Rycroft said, “the form of exit on current plans is hard Brexit, Canada-style, not staying in the single market or customs union. That would mean a loss of growth, not as bad as no deal, but more than the deal Theresa May was seeking and more than staying the EU.”
He continued: “both the Scottish and Welsh governments push the line that the UK should seek to stay in the customs union and the single market in order to preserve as far as possible the existing patterns of trade. And that would have meant a different sort of Brexit. Would more people in Scotland have been reconciled to that? Difficult to say, but the chances are people would have felt perhaps that their voice had been heard more loudly than it has been.”
The reality, though, is that devolved voices have been squeezed out. Intergovernmental relations are at a very low ebb. “The system that we’ve got at the moment is under huge pressure, inevitably, because the political differences are greater than they ever have been… there certainly hasn't been a meeting of minds.”
Consider the Sewel convention, which says that Westminster does not legislate in areas of devolved competence without the consent of the devolved administrations. Yet last year the EU Withdrawal Act, which very much has a bearing on those competences, was pushed through “despite not having legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament… it was passed nevertheless, which was a first in terms of Scottish legislation.” The Westminster government was discarding a constitutional norm designed to protect the UK. “This was a first for Scotland.”
In Rycroft’s view “Brexit will require a serious refresh of the way that intergovernmental relations work.”
One much-discussed possibility is a more federal system, as in the United States. There are different forms but this would be a step up from devolution, giving rather than lending power to the nations of the UK. “It's a persuasive argument,” Rycroft said, adding “There are some really tough issues to resolve if you go down that track."
“I think England is way over-centralised still. I very much welcome the moves that have been made to devolve more power to metro mayors and so on, but I think there’s a long road still to travel on that. And I think in that mix, there is possibly something that one could create that allows a more federal, if not a wholly federal construct to be to be developed.”
The aim must be that “people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have this assurance that they're respected in the highest councils of the land.” Westminster would not have ultimate authority over Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
What have been the lessons of the past three years? For one thing Brexit has shown how difficult it is to disentangle a Union. “It's not easy to do. But we knew that when we were looking at the implications of a ‘Yes’ vote in the independence referendum, with a huge amount of work done in terms of the challenges that would pose for an independent Scotland: the disentangling of a currency, of social security systems, of deeply integrated economic infrastructure, and the list went on.”
“So Brexit has shown that breaking up is hard to do. And Brexit is about coming out of a 40-odd-year-old Union as far as the UK is concerned, which is mainly economic in its intended purpose, mainly about the single market, obviously other dimensions as well. And compare that to a 300-year-old Union, where the intertwining is that much thicker. I think that is illustrative of the challenges if the UK was to begin to fall apart.
“If we’re to face another independence referendum in Scotland at some point in the next few years, it seems to me that the politicians who wish to sustain the Union are going to have to think very, very hard, and very quickly about what they can do, what the offer can be, to people in Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland in order to sustain this Union.” Whether an answer can be found by the next incumbent of Downing Street, be it Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, is an open question.
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