The platinum anniversary this month was a celebration of perseverance. Seventy years on the throne of the same Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Union Jack decorated the streets as an emblem of this union, combining the crosses of the patron saints of England, Scotland and Ireland. There is no image of St. David on the flag – a reminder that Wales has often participated in the great constitutional debate of the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom is still developing today.
In Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, the ties that connect us are under increasing stress. The national anthem hopes that the queen will be “obliged to rule over us,” but there is no God-given reason for her or her heirs to rule the same geographical or political entity.
Queen Victoria was Empress. As the heads of government of this former empire travel to Rwanda this weekend for their biennial CHOGM summit, they no longer give the word “British” to the British Commonwealth and allow Elizabeth II to be nominated head of the British Commonwealth only by invitation. and not by right.
At the British Community Games this summer in Birmingham, the nations that make up Britain’s Olympic team will compete against each other, as they do at international football matches.
The GB and UK identities are relatively recent historical innovations. The Scottish and English monarchies merged in 1603. The Act of Alliance between the two countries came 100 years later. Northern Ireland originated a century ago when parts of the island of Ireland gained independence. Decentralized governments were created only for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland during the Tony Blair government at the beginning of this century.
From Owen Glindour and Robert Bruce to the IRA, none of these changes have taken place without violence.
How Brexit sharpened divisions
The task of keeping the United Kingdom together falls to the British government, based in England and dominated by British politics, because England overshadows other nations. The British electorate represents 83.9% of the total number of the United Kingdom in the last general election in 2019. 533 deputies in the Municipality represent English constituencies compared to 117 from other nations.
The second referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union in June 2016, six years next week, was sparked by turmoil in the British Conservative Party and splits in the right of British politics.
The desire was to regain control that was considered lost by the supranational power of the European Union. England and Wales voted to leave, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted by a larger margin. United Kingdom Brexit from the EU.
This clear divergence of opinion has exacerbated the division in the Union.
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1:00 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says people in Scotland are suffering from Brexit, which ‘we did not vote for’
This week, the SNP and Scotland’s first minister, Nicholas Sturgeon, renewed their campaign for a second independence referendum with an online video predicted against “the harmful Brexit that Scotland voted against by a large majority.”
Meanwhile, the government for the division of power in Northern Ireland has been suspended due to the inherent contradictions of the protocol agreed by Boris Johnson with the EU for “Brexit”.
The problem with the protocol
The Belfast agreement was approved on Good Friday 1998 by the British and Irish governments and most of the main political parties in Northern Ireland (the DUP only came into force later). The US and the EU have been very active in the background as guarantors. There was a general agreement on rapprochement between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, because they were both members of the EU. Recognition of the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights is enshrined in the Treaty.
The United Kingdom has withdrawn from the EU and the UK government is proposing unilateral changes to the implementation of the protocol, and now, due to its difficulties in sending migrants to Rwanda, the ECtHR. This government restrains international agreements and judges who can influence its actions, even when they cross international borders.
The Northern Ireland Protocol came about because the Westminster government paid little attention to the province’s demands during the Brexit talks. At the last moment, they tried to square the circle.
Northern Ireland remains within the EU for commercial purposes, thus avoiding the need for a “hard border” between North and South, but inevitably creating some sort of trade border with the island of Great Britain, as it is now in a different trade bloc. to leave the EU).
Unionist parties are fully justified in claiming that a border separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom is a breach of Good Friday’s promise of mutual respect for the two communities that each can identify with either Ireland or the United Kingdom. kingdom without obstacles. But the practicalities of Brexit make that impossible.
Image: Shin Fein celebrates the success of the assembly elections
Sinn Féin, who represents a united Ireland, is now the largest party in both Ireland and Northern Ireland. Both nations hold elections through proportional representation, anathema to the Westminster Conservatives, whose majority hegemony depends on a divided opposition in the First Past system.
The SNP, meanwhile, argues that adhering to the UK’s smaller union, long deprived of the Empire’s glory, now deprives Scotland of the benefits of membership in a larger union with Europe. His new campaign claims that smaller nations in the EU are richer, happier and fairer than the United Kingdom.
Boris Johnson’s response to the “Love Project” is more government than the center and points out that Scotland is doing relatively well from Her Majesty’s treasury.
Is patience running out in unity?
Opinion polls clearly show that there is still no majority for secession in either Northern Ireland or Scotland. There are serious financial reasons for this, although minority separatist sentiment is also rising in Wales.
Meanwhile, English voters, especially the Conservatives, are losing patience; they say in studies that they don’t care if Northern Ireland or Scotland stay or leave.
Read more from Adam Bulton: The slow death of prime ministers and what awaits Boris Johnson
When the United Kingdom was a member, the EU was the glue that helped keep the Union together. It has always opposed separatist movements in its member states, while promoting “Europe of the Regions” and more than sixty languages as a federal insurance policy.
There is no indication of any practical action by the EU against the United Kingdom, but it is an embarrassing fact that Union support is no longer in the EU’s strategic interest – especially if Scotland or the United Kingdom, for example, are potential Member States.
It would be unwise to bet that all native nations are still part of this United Kingdom, as it is now, on the platinum anniversary of 70 years.
Adam Bulton writes a column every Friday for Sky News
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