A SHATTERED UNION: WHY BREXIT HAS RUINED THE UNITY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

As most people who follow the news probably know, Great Britain has had a referendum to “leave” or “remain” in the European Union. It was close, but the majority voted to leave. This raises many questions about the future of the U.K. “Is the economy gonna fail?” “What about immigrants?” But the major question I personally think everyone is overlooking is the very real possibility of Scotland, and maybe even Northern Ireland, leaving the union.

I would like to start off this article with a map.

Yellow=Remain, Blue=Leave

To someone who has barely followed brexit and just randomly decides to look at this map, they will probably find it strange that every part of Scotland has voted to remain, while England and Wales have generally mixed opinions over the brexit. But to those who have been following the referendum, this doesn’t come off as a surprise. Even after Scotland chose to remain with the rest of the U.K in a 2014 referendum, the threat of Scottish independence wasn’t dead. Nicola Sturgeon has recently said, now that the U.K has voted to leave, that a second Scottish independence vote “highly likely”[1]. Not to mention that Scottish parties in favour of independence from the U.K backed “remain”, citing a pivotal change in Scottish public opinion. This can be disastrous for the British economy, as Scotland is responsible for a lot of the United Kingdom’s Agriculture, Oil and Natural Gas, Fishing, and Manufacturing, among other trades.

Unlike a lot of the U.K, Northern Ireland has generally favourable opinions towards the European Union, and they’re the only part of the U.K that shares a land border with an E.U member (Republic of Ireland). When you look at the map above, the vote in Northern Ireland seems pretty balanced, however, the most populous parts of the country (e.g Belfast) have voted to remain. Keep in mind that one of the biggest “remain” backers in Northern Ireland was the Sinn Fein, a secessionist party, while the strongest backers of “leave” in Ulster were the DUP, a unionist party. The fact that the majority of voters chose remain cites a pivotal change in Northern Irish public opinion. It indeed proves to reignite the nationalist hope of leaving the U.K, as Northern Ireland has always been a traditionally unionist stronghold and the fact that the Northern Irish public backed secessionists in an extremely important vote is citing change, which should have unionists worried.

So, to finish this article, I would like to state that while the “leave” campaigners promised Brits a stronger Britain, it has shattered and divided a once “United” Kingdom.