Photographer: WPA Pool / Getty Images
Photographer: WPA Pool / Getty Images
Boris Johnson left for Scotland to try to demonstrate the benefits of the UK he leads, as a strong alliance of four nations working together to defeat the pandemic.
Instead, he found himself embroiled in an argument over whether Scotland should be allowed to hold another independence referendum just seven years after it last voted on the issue.
The British Prime Minister rejected the demands for a new vote and insisted that even pro-independence activists, including Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon, agreed at the time that the 2014 plebiscite was a one-generation event. But he went further than before, discussing what any future referendum, including the future of the currency, should consider.
“We don’t really know what that referendum would accomplish,” Johnson said in a joint interview. “We do not know what would happen to the army, we do not know what would happen to the crown, the pound, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
Johnson’s most important point was that by working together, the four nations of the United Kingdom can pool resources and fight the pandemic.