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Are We Witnessing the Unmaking of Great Britain?

Jamie Dettmer

   Almost whatever happens Dec. 12, after Britons have voted for the third
   time in almost four years in a general election, the country is likely
   to emerge even more disunited than before, analysts and commentators
   worry.

   The vote may well mark an important stage in the unpacking of the union
   of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, otherwise known as the United
   Kingdom, they say. According to the five living former British prime
   ministers, the turmoil caused by Brexit has plunged Britain into an
   existential crisis, and has turned the upcoming poll into the most
   consequential British election of modern times.

   If Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservatives win, Northern Ireland
   will end up being pushed closer to the Republic of Ireland, thanks to
   the most recent Brexit deal negotiated with the European Union that
   would align the British-run province with EU rules on food safety and
   other standards. That would require customs officials to check goods
   entering Northern Ireland from mainland Britain.

   Meanwhile, if Jeremy Corbyn, seen as Labour's most left-wing leader
   since the 1920s ends up in Downing Street, it will likely be thanks to
   support from the Scottish Nationalist Party. That party has made clear
   its price will be another Scottish independence referendum, which
   stands a high chance this time of passing, unlike the poll in 2014. Few
   pollsters believe Labour can win enough seats to form a majority
   government. Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scotland's first
   minister -- the head of the Scottish government -- said she was sure
   Corbyn would agree to another independence plebiscite if he becomes
   prime minister.

   He may not have any choice. Some veteran politicians, including former
   Prime Ministers Tony Blair and John Major, worried even before the 2016
   British referendum on European Union membership that the plebiscite
   could well set in motion the conditions for a break-up of the United
   Kingdom. With large majorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland opposed
   to Brexit, the writing was on the wall, they said.

   Blair warned that at the very least it would "completely change the
   dynamic of Scottish independence." He and others said the demand for a
   second independence referendum would be "unstoppable" if the Scottish
   pro-European views are discounted.

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