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Monday must have been a historical first. Never before have three of the four “nations” of the United Kingdom jointly demanded freedom to vote for its dissolution. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have lost confidence in England. They declared in Cardiff that the unionist government at Westminster is “coming to an end”.
There was no such Celtic alliance against the Normans, Edward I or Cromwell. Celtic MPs have never formed a voting coalition in parliament. The Victorian Liberal party advanced “home rule for all”, but that was not independence and it got nowhere. Ireland rebelled, but it did so alone. When this eventually succeeded, Britain said good riddance, kept hold of Belfast and continued to centralise power in London.
So this is serious stuff. Yet London politics this week treated the declaration as on a par with the Oxfordshire village of Piddington voting to go it alone to ward off the possibility of asylum seekers being housed nearby.
The UK’s only serious geographical devolution came in 1999. It was half-hearted, mostly decentralising the running of the welfare state. But it surged the vote for Scottish and Welsh separatism and fed rather than abated the cause of independence. We can only imagine if ruling parties in Bavaria or Provence or Sicily had opted for independence from Germany, France or Italy – or if California said it had enough of Donald Trump’s US. The result would be political eruption.
What does the Cardiff “memorandum of understanding” actually mean? The answer is not much in detail. There was advocacy of policy collaboration, as on childcare and economic growth. There were hints of moves towards further devolution, of the sort promised by Andy Burnham. But there was no suggestion of a new Celtic state, a British Celtica. The talks seemed to concentrate on self-determination, which Burnham had described as “off limits”, at least in the case of Scotland. Yet this was a man who declared self-determination for the Falklands would be defended even at the cost of tens of millions of pounds a year.
The reality is that these three nations of the union have markedly different relations with England. Northern Ireland’s bipartisan government, a legacy of civil war and the Good Friday agreement, is clearly dysfunctional. As Donald Trump remarked last week, it really should advance toward Irish union.
As interfaith relations slowly improve, a possible majority in favour of reunion also becomes more plausible. Support for union in Northern Ireland is now around one-third, with a majority among the young. Self-determination is not in Burnham’s gift but is written into Northern Ireland’s constitution. Observers accept that it must and will happen one day.
Wales may also have a majority of its under-35s in favour of independence. But only a bare Welsh majority voted for even mild devolution in 1997 and support for independence hovers at 32%. The poor performance of the Welsh health and education services makes self-government ever more alarming, and the generosity of the London Exchequer ever more essential. Perhaps the novelty of the new Plaid Cymru government can transform things, but Welsh independence is at best a distant fantasy.
This leaves Scotland. Here independence is an active issue. The population of 5.5 million puts the country in the 5-10 million band of Europe’s medium-sized states, such as Denmark, Norway, Finland, Austria and Switzerland. “Small is beautiful” appears to suit Europe’s distinctive welfare economies and keeps them ahead of their larger neighbours.
Scottish unionists keep pointing to Scotland’s £25bn fiscal deficit, financed by London’s Treasury and sustaining the country’s struggling health service. But independence is a dynamic not static state. In 1922 Ireland was among the poorest countries in Europe, far behind Scotland. Its economic self-sufficiency seemed hopeless, and for some 30 years it was indeed in desperate straits. Yet by the 1990s Irish membership of the EU and the adoption of a fierce fiscal autonomy had utterly transformed it into the celebrated “Celtic Tiger”. From limping behind Scotland and other poorer European regions, Dublin raced ahead. It has become one of Europe’s richest nations per capita, albeit partly thanks to its status as a base for corporate tax avoidance.
Ireland’s burst of economic vitality in the late 20th century could never have taken place had it remained an adjunct of Britain. Income per head is now ahead of Scotland’s, having once lagged far behind. It grew between 2012 and 2022 by 9% on average, against Scotland’s 1%. Whether Ireland is richer than Denmark is much debated, but the performance of an autonomous Ireland cannot be gainsaid. It is a lighthouse for the macro-economics of smallness.
There is every reason why Scotland could feel held back by longstanding English dominance. Its economy, like the rest of Britain’s, has always been down the queue from London and the south-east. It has long felt cheated of its maritime oil and gas reserves. Trade has been crippled by Brexit. Unionists argue that the Barnett formula subsidy of £50bn a year is fair compensation. But Ireland’s experience suggests that dependence on foreign subsidy is a curse, not a blessing. The most glaring comparative statistic is that health outcomes in both Ireland and Denmark are now well ahead of Scotland’s. The scale of Glasgow’s drug deaths are a horror story.
British loyalist though I may be, if I were a Scot I would have no hesitation. This is a real nation, and has been throughout history. Scotland has a personality and a culture recognised worldwide. Its capital, Edinburgh, is among Europe’s finest cities. Its “Silicon Glen” should be leading Europe’s AI revolution. Tourism is an obvious attraction. That the country should stumble behind its Nordic neighbours is absurd.
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Scotland would have a tough transition to self-reliance, as did Ireland. But experience everywhere suggests that small autonomous democracies fare well, witness other relative newcomers such as Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and the Baltics. Their governments can concentrate on their own priorities and promote their own virtues.
An independent Scotland would be bespoke. It could retain its royal figurehead and Commonwealth membership. It could even honour a “united kingdom” and the king could stay in Balmoral. Relations with other states, EU and non-EU, would be complicated, as they are at borders across the continent. That is for diplomacy to resolve. The issue is self-determination, not convenience.
Burnham is the first British prime minister to appear sincere in decentralising political power. How far he understands its significance is moot. His beloved “metro mayors” are accountable regionally, not representatives of truly local loyalties. They appear as his agents, enacting his policies and enforcing his planning quotas on subordinate councils. He has shown he will stamp the Piddingtons of England into the ground.
That is why Burnham should welcome any Scottish desire for “independence”. It would be the most exciting constitutional reform of the UK in centuries and one that, on current figures, would save the Treasury around £25bn a year – the cost of the Scottish fiscal deficit. It would also release the Tartan Tiger.
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Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
