During the referendum, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove blithely dismissed the risk that Brexit could lead to Scottish independence. Now as the government charges towards a hard, destructive Brexit, we are ill prepared to stop it.
To the Leave camp, the possibility that the Scottish Nationalists would use Brexit as an excuse to break up the United Kingdom, which has been a pillar of our greatness for over three centuries, was just another aspect of Project Fear. Watch this video from February last year when Johnson said the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 was a “once in a generation vote, there was no doubt at all about the result, and I think that will abide”.
If anything, Gove, a Scot, was even more careless. Not only did he wrongly predict on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show last May that most Scots would vote to quit the EU (62% voted Remain), he went on to say: “When we vote to leave it will be clear that having voted to leave one union the last thing the people of Scotland will want to do is to break up another.”
Now just because Nicola Sturgeon wants another Scottish independence referendum doesn’t mean she’ll get one, let alone that the Scottish first minister will win it. But one can’t be sure. Last week, there was an opinion poll showing the Scots were evenly divided on the question, and betting odds are showing independence has a slight lead if there is another plebiscite.
Theresa May will rightly argue that the Scots would be economically foolish to quit the UK. It’s unclear what currency an independent Scotland would use, it relies on subsidies from England and North Sea oil is well past its peak. What’s more, the UK single market is four times as valuable for Scotland as the EU single market is – and it’s likely anyway that Scotland would have to quit the EU before being allowed back in.
But Sturgeon is already using much of the Brexiters’ old playbook. Accusing Westminster of Project Fear. Saying what matters is that Scotland is in “control” of its own destiny. Dismissing the notion that there could be border controls between Scotland and England in the same way that Brexiters dismiss the risk of border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Saying Scotland doesn’t have to choose between the UK and the EU – effectively that it can have its cake and eat it.
So, yes, it would be crazy for Scotland to quit the UK. But Brexiters should know better than anybody that the mere fact that something is crazy doesn’t mean people won’t vote for it. What havoc they have unleashed.