The biggest test in the UK could be the ability to survive

Photographer: Emily Macinnes / Bloomberg

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson is passionate about big projects, but few are as appealing as the proposal for a physical link across the Irish Sea between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Whether a multi-billion pound dream or a sign of ambition that matches the post-Brexit era, a feasibility study is underway as part of the government reviewing how to better link the UK and its four nations. A more immediate concern may be whether the link could one day connect two independent states that are no longer part of the United Kingdom.

As Britain marks 100 days since it backed the European Union, fighting has broken out with the continent over issues from customs controls to vaccines and financial services.

Tensions at home are raising the specter of a more existential conflict, however, one that will determine whether Johnson’s goal of breaking into the world under the banner of a revived “global Britain” will have to be demoted to a humbler “global England.”

Scotland will do it holds elections on May 6 for its Edinburgh parliament, which votes on whether the nation has the right – or the need – for another say on its constitutional future. polls suggests that the pro-independence Scottish National Party could reach a high-level majority given the proportional electoral system and call for a second referendum on secession from Britain;

In Northern Ireland, grievances are being dealt with by its separate treatment of the British mainland under the Brexit agreement between London and Brussels, and the province’s divided bitter past is resurfacing as a result. More than 70 police officers were injured in a week of riots by pro-British loyalists who dropped petrol bombs. Polls suggest a remarkable shift in sentiment for a region so long dominated by its unionist community, with most now saying they want a vote for reunification with the Republic of Ireland within five years.

Even in Wales, which, unlike Scotland or Northern Ireland, voted with England in favor of Brexit, support for independence increased during the coronavirus pandemic. Wales is also holding elections for its regional assembly on May 6 and there is a chance that the Labor Party government will have the power to share power with the nationalist party Plaid Cymru. Plaid has pledged to vote for Welsh independence within five years.

The dissolution of the three-century-old union has been speculated for decades, certainly long before Brexit became part of the vernacular. On their own, the developments in each of the three nations do not necessarily mean revolutionary changes, but speak of changing cultural identities and varying degrees of political dissatisfaction with the center of power in London.

Taken together, it is hard to ignore a growing sense that things are coming inexorably, either diminishing the union or strengthening it, and Brexit has given those forces more capacity.

“But for Brexit, the union would be relatively secure, but now I’m not so sure,” he said Matt Qvortrup, a professor of political science at Coventry University, who served as a special adviser on constitutional issues in the UK. The change “will not be the day after tomorrow, but give it 10 years”.

The challenge for Johnson, who was the driving force behind the successful campaign to give up the EU in what was conceived as an attempt to claim British sovereignty, is how to cauterize political wounds at home. His dilemma is sharpened by the fact that his Conservatives govern in Westminster, but not in Belfast, Edinburgh or Cardiff, where separate parties are dominant, reflecting the different regional preferences of voters in a process known as devolution.

Read more: 100 days of Brexit: was it as bad as the “fear of the project” warned?

The strongest of these decentralized governments is in Scotland, where it manages most important policy areas in everyday life, from health and education to transport and justice. The United Kingdom controls areas including foreign affairs, defense and macroeconomic policy.

Johnson has so far refused to give the SNP-administered government the legal permission it needs for another referendum to be sealed, saying the 2014 election was an event that took place in a generation. The Scots voted between 55% and 45% to stay in the UK then, although at the time there was no idea that Britain could be about to leave the EU.

The emphasis now, Johnson says, should be on rebuilding the pandemic together and that constitutional issues are an unwanted distraction. Conservative leader Johnson of Scotland, Douglas Ross, says that “it is recovery or referendum. We can’t do both. He called on other opposition parties to join some constituencies to stop the nationalists.

The election campaign was suspended on Friday after the death of the queen’s husband, Prince Philip.

Another landslide of the SNP – the party has been in power since 2007 – would escalate the confrontation with London and, if Edinburgh increased the demands, investors could be scared and the pound to take a hit. There is a division within Johnson about whether his government should simply continue to ignore Scotland’s demands for another blow to independence or seek to gain time and provide enough money or more power in the hope that the issue it will disappear.

The risk is to spin instead. And the longer the dispute, the more likely it is to be resolved by demographics. Support for independence is highest among young people and the Scottish voting age is 16.

The Scots, however, have never warmed up for Johnson, who was educated at Eton, whose top-class troubles are alongside the de facto issue of Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon.

The essence of Sturgeon’s argument for another vote for independence is usually straightforward: Brexit has changed the game. No district in Scotland voted to leave the EU in 2016, but had to leave with the rest of the UK anyway. The years of fighting that led to Brexit on 31 January 2020 only hindered divisions, with decentralized administrations claiming that they had been rejected.

Part of this anti-Brexit sentiment has been turned into support for the cause of independence. According to a strategy paper prepared for the Conservatives and seen by Bloomberg in October, the concern is that there are not enough pro-Brexit voters to counter them.

Emily Gray, who leads Investigator Ipsos MORI of Scotland says Brexit has been critical to the progressive increasing assisted support for independence. The result is “significant doubts in Scotland about the future of the union,” she said. “More than half of Scots expect Britain not to exist in its current form in five years.”

Johnson seems to have a strong argument for the union in the form of the successful launch of vaccines in the UK so far. However, Sturgeon, not Johnson, is facing the pandemic battle in Scotland, and the prime minister says that the way Johnson handled Covid-19, with the highest number of deaths in Europe, highlighted the need for full autonomy.

The latest Ipsos MORI poll, conducted between March 29 and April 4, projected that the SNP would occupy 70 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament. As pro-independence Greens see a leap in support, the momentum for a referendum appears to be growing. Some other polls have shown that the SNP will be short, but none have predicted a pro-union majority.