Burnham Inadvertently Reinvigorates Scottish Separatism
The prime minister’s rhetoric about reversing Brexit raises uncomfortable questions about Scottish independence.
Is the United Kingdom on its way out? Has the break-up of Britain finally arrived? Certainly, the political map of the United Kingdom has changed in the past six months, with nationalists now dominating all three devolved parliaments.
Michelle O’Neill, the deputy leader of Sinn Féin (which used to be the political wing of the Irish Republican Army), is currently first minister of Northern Ireland. The Welsh nationalist leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth of Plaid Cymru, is now in command in Cardiff, following his party’s sweep of the Senedd in May 2026. That same month, John Swinney became first minister of Scotland, after his Scottish National Party (SNP) won its fifth consecutive Scottish parliamentary election. It looks as if it is all kicking off in the Celtic fringe.
Swinney told his recent conference that there is “panic in the streets of London” at the prospect of these three nationalist leaders working together to demolish the 300-year-old Union. Last month, the trio got together in Cardiff to sign a memorandum of understanding demanding “democratic self-determination.”
“For people watching across these islands”, it said, “[and] for people watching around the world, there could be no clearer sign that Westminster’s time is coming to an end.”
Moscow is certainly watching. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the departure of “the Celts” from the UK could raise questions about Britain’s continued membership of the United Nations Security Council. The British state “has diminished to the utmost degree,” he claimed.
Mind you, there is no direct constitutional significance in these devolved legislatures being controlled by nationalists. Sinn Féin shares power in Northern Ireland with a unionist party. Plaid Cymru is not demanding an immediate referendum on secession. And in Scotland, support for an early repeat referendum seems to be waning.
According to a YouGov poll published on the eve of the recent SNP conference in Aberdeen, fewer than 20 per cent of Scots regard an independence referendum as a political priority. This is despite the UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham apparently doing his best to make it one.
The new PM said this month that he is determined to bring Britain closer to Europe, possibly by holding another referendum on Brexit. Bring it on! cried the SNP, which is dedicated to rejoining the European Union, and bring on “Indyref2” while you’re at it.
“Mr. Burnham needs to explain to the people of Scotland,” said the party’s Economy Secretary, Stephen Flynn, “why it is legitimate to reopen the democratic question of Brexit but not legitimate to reopen the democratic question of Scottish independence.” He has a point.
The PM’s musings on Europe have revived all the grievances about how Scotland was dragged out of the EU by “English votes” in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Sixty-two percent of Scots voted to remain in the European Union, but the referendum was UK-wide, and Scotland’s result was eclipsed by the overall vote to leave (which was 52 percent to 48 percent).
The SNP also claims that the 2014 Scottish independence referendum was fought on a “false prospectus.” One of the key arguments of the unionist Better Together campaign, led by the former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling and backed by then-PM David Cameron, was that Scotland could not stay in the EU if Scots voted to leave the UK. It would have to apply to Brussels to rejoin as a third country.
In the event, remaining in the UK led to Scotland being dragged out of the EU: precisely what many unionists thought they were voting to avoid. Now here is Andy Burnham claiming, in effect, that this whole Brexit thing was a mistake and needs to be reversed. But if that is the case, say the Scottish nationalists, then surely they should get a do-over on the independence vote as well?
The PM also raised unionist eyebrows last month at Prime Minister’s Questions, when he equated Scotland’s constitutional position in the UK with that of Northern Ireland under the Good Friday Agreement. “The situation is exactly the same,” he said.
The SNP could hardly believe their ears. The 1998 agreement that brought an end to the Irish Troubles provides for a referendum on Irish reunification—a “border poll”—if there is a clear demand from the people of the province. Why not a border poll for Scotland, then?
One the even of this month’s SNP conference in Aberdeen, Burnham seemed to concede that there could be a repeat Scottish referendum if enough Scots wanted one. But he later “clarified” this by saying that another Scottish referendum was “off limits.” John Swinney lost no time exploiting the contradiction.
He told his party conference this month that the campaign for the next independence referendum “has already begun” and that it would be held no later than 2031. This was just rhetoric, however, and Swinney knows it. The UK Supreme Court ruled four years ago that the Scottish Parliament lacks the power to hold its own referendum on independence, even an advisory one.
Only the UK Parliament in Westminster can authorize another ballot for Scotland. And none of the main party leaders in the Commons is prepared to propose such a measure.
Yet no one seriously doubts that, if there were a mass movement of Scots demanding Indyref2, it would be politically very difficult to refuse one. At present, there is no such movement in Scotland, though around half of Scots say they favor independence as a long-term destination. Andy Burnham must be careful what he says if he wishes to avoid jump-starting this latent Scottish separatism—and making good Swinney’s recent boast that Burnham will be “the last prime minister of the United Kingdom.”
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