For centuries, London ruled an empire on which the sun never set. Now it is beginning to have trouble keeping the hallway light on.
The leaders of the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Féin signed a memorandum of understanding in Cardiff, pledging closer cooperation and asserting the right of their peoples to determine their own constitutional future. John Swinney for Scotland, Rhun ap Iorwerth for Wales, Michelle O’Neill for Northern Ireland and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald put their names to a document its sponsors described as historic.
The champagne, however, should remain on ice for a few more minutes. They did not sign the dissolution of the United Kingdom, set a date for any referendum or request quotations for removing the word United from British passports.
They also participated as leaders of their respective parties, not as official representatives of the devolved governments. This may sound like one of those British distinctions that requires tea, patience and a solicitor. Yet it matters: the agreement expresses a political intention; it does not alter a single line of the constitutional order.
Nor do the three movements seek exactly the same destination. Scotland wants to become an independent state. Wales intends to move towards sovereignty, although it does not yet command a clear social majority willing to make the journey. Northern Ireland, meanwhile, does not seek to establish a new country, but to reunite with the Republic of Ireland.
Their legal routes are different as well. Scotland and Wales depend largely upon Westminster authorising their votes. Northern Ireland has a path already established under the Good Friday Agreement: if it appears likely that a majority would support reunification, the British Government must call a border poll.
In other words, all three partners want the option of leaving the house, but only one has a door written into the tenancy agreement. The other two must ask the landlord for the key—and the landlord declares his profound respect for the tenants’ freedom while carefully retaining every copy.
The numbers also counsel restraint. Scottish independence is close to commanding a majority; Irish reunification has become an increasingly credible possibility, although it continues to divide Northern Irish society; and support for Welsh independence remains a minority position. The pact is therefore not a divorce decree. It is the first group photograph of three spouses consulting the same lawyer.
Westminster replies that British families are worried about the cost of living, housing and jobs, not another round of referendums. There is a reasonable logic to that argument, though it is slightly loaded: everyday hardship does not make constitutional disputes disappear. Quite often, it is precisely what feeds them.
The real significance of the Cardiff meeting lies not in what it can deliver tomorrow, but in what it has revealed today. For the first time, the leading politicians of the three devolved nations publicly share an uncomfortable proposition for London: the future of the United Kingdom should not be decided exclusively by those determined to preserve it.
No removal vans have arrived yet. So far, the participants have merely met, compared grievances and drafted a memorandum. But when three members of a union begin discussing together how they might leave it, perhaps the real problem is not the document they signed.
Perhaps it is the union that brought them to sign it.
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Sources consulted: The Times, ITV News, The Guardian.