Breakup of UK a price worth paying for Brexit, say Leave voters in poll
A large majority of Leave voters think the breakup of the United Kingdom is a price worth paying for Brexit, according to a Sky News poll.
Leave voters were asked if they thought Scotland becoming independent would be a price worth paying for delivering Brexit – 41% said yes, while only 18% said no.
Of the remainder, 17% said they would be happy for Scotland to leave the union regardless of the circumstances and 24% said they didn’t know.
The YouGov survey, conducted across Britain, also asked both Leave and Remain voters if they thought Brexit made Scottish independence more likely – 40% said yes.
The opinion poll was undertaken as Sky News travelled to the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom to gauge its fragility.
In our opinion poll, Leave voters were also asked if Welsh independence would be a price worth paying for delivering Brexit. While 28% said yes, 26% said no.
Professor Sir Tom Devine, of the University of Edinburgh, said that, in the debate on Scotland’s future and the future of the United Kingdom, the English nationalist voice would be most powerful.
“It’s always been my view that if the union comes to an end, it will come to an end because of either English indifference or hostility,” he said. “I think at the moment there’s probably more indifference than hostility, but there’s little doubt that that is a brand of English nationalism, which is broad. Which in a sense is not really interested on whether Scotland continues in the union or not.”
England was the powerhouse behind the Brexit vote and is pivotal in preserving the UK. If the kingdom’s biggest and most powerful partner decided it didn’t have a future, then it wouldn’t have one.
Is there an increase in English nationalism? And with it, a hardening sense that the English regard see an increasing irrelevance in remaining inside the United Kingdom?
John Denham, an ex-Labour cabinet minister and professor of English identity and politics at Southampton University, said: “I think the truth is that there is a set of voters who want England’s interests protected, and if for them that means leaving the EU then if that had to be the end of the union they would go along with that, that doesn’t mean they’re against the union or they want it to break up but if that’s what it came down to that’s what they would prioritise.”
In Northern Ireland, the view of the UK’s future tends to split along community lines – this is still a part of the world where politics turns on religious differences.