Next PM must make saving the Union his priority

Most Conservative party members believe that implementing Brexit is more important than preserving the Union, according to a YouGov poll. The company surveyed 892 Tories, 63 per cent of whom said they would rather Brexit took place, even if it meant Scotland leaving the United Kingdom. Some 59 per cent indicated they would prefer to sever links with Northern Ireland rather than remain in the EU.

These results make depressing reading for Tories who take the unionism of the Conservative and Unionist party seriously. YouGov’s questions were hypothetical, but they bolster the argument that the bonds that tie together the UK have been weakened by three years of intemperate debate on implementing Brexit.

It’s not that Leave supporting English Tories are the only ones whose priorities have been upturned. A vocal clique of Scottish political commentators promote the idea that an independent Scotland has become newly appealing thanks to Brexit, which they claim stems from English nationalism. “If Brexit is a shipwreck, independence can be a lifeboat,” writes Alex Massie. If another referendum takes place his colleague, Chris Deerin, says he doesn’t know which way he’ll vote.

On either side, tempers are frayed and these proclamations may be fuelled by anger. I don’t recognise my country anymore, squeal ultra-remainers, as if membership of a distant bureaucratic monolith in Brussels was always the bedrock of British national identity. Democracy is being subverted, roar the wilder Brexiteers, and we must smash everyone and everything responsible, regardless of the consequences.

Yet, even if the poll results are shaped by short-term anger, it would be complacent to dismiss the sentiments being expressed and the dangers they represent. The main parties at Westminster spend far too little time thinking about the Union and how it can best be preserved and strengthened. So far, the integrity of our nation state has been a marginal issue in the Conservative leadership race.

The YouGov poll coincided with the publication of a Policy Exchange paper on the Irish backstop, written by Lord Bew, one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement. The document is part of a series tackling difficult policy issues and asking “what do we want from the next Prime Minister?”

Lord Bew examines the backstop with broader constitutional questions in mind and urges the new premier to pay more attention to the resilience of the United Kingdom. “In an era in which the Union is being questioned and challenged,” he writes, “the cohesion of the British nation state must be the absolute priority of anyone seeking to hold the highest office.”

This importance of this point is underlined by seeming ambivalence among grassroots Tory members, though these attitudes also demonstrate why the leadership candidates are unlikely to respond positively.

If the bulk of Conservatives are cavalier about the future of the United Kingdom – if achieving Brexit eclipses economic considerations, party loyalty and even the survival of the country – then a prospective leader will not win by making the Union a central theme of their campaign.

The erosion of the political affinities that bind together the UK did not start with Brexit or even with the independence referendum in Scotland. Devolution created lasting tensions between central and regional governments that have never properly been addressed or thought through. The administrations in Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff allow nationalists to nurture grievances against Westminster and, in turn, breed resentment in England, where taxpayers feel they are funding generous public services in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Against this backdrop, the idea that we could take a major constitutional decision like Brexit as a single nation and a single electorate caused difficulties. Nationalists and die-hard opponents of leaving the EU have tried to pick apart the referendum result, claiming that England has forced its choice on Scotland and Northern Ireland, where majorities voted for Remain. These claims have often found a receptive audience, even among those who would formerly have counted themselves as unionists.

At the same time, the EU has ruthlessly exploited the idea that the Good Friday Agreement requires a “backstop” for Northern Ireland that includes an internal economic border down the Irish Sea. The agreement, Lord Bew says, “has been ripped out of its historical context… The false narrative – that the backstop is the only way to protect the Good Friday Agreement – must be challenged at its core.”

Yet some Tories, like the MP Daniel Kawczynski, who supports Boris Johnson in the leadership contest, have started to blame Northern Irish unionists for blocking Brexit. “We have still not left the European Union,” he claims, “because the DUP absolutely categorically refused to contemplate the Northern Ireland backstop.” By this logic, unionists in Ulster should accept being ripped apart from the rest of the UK and placed substantially under the authority of Brussels, so that the British mainland can leave the EU.

It’s an attitude reflected in the findings of the YouGov poll.

In theory, members of the Conservative party should be among the strongest advocates of maintaining the United Kingdom. The Tory grassroots are overwhelmingly in favour of leaving the EU and Brexit was supposed to be about asserting the sovereignty of our nation state. Veteran Conservatives, like Lord Tebbit and Colonel Bob Stewart MP, have expressed scepticism about the results, but the YouGov poll at least shows how damaging this saga has become to our sense of togetherness.

Whatever the outcome of Brexit, the next Prime Minister must make rebuilding those bonds his most urgent priority.