Can the UK break up? This is complicated, of course. It might required a revolution rather than an act of parliament (whichever one). I have found inspiration from numerous sources, the main ones being: globaltimes.cn and Abcnews. The background for this entire topic is that the first ministers of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales signed an agreement 14 September this year. The agreement was rather clear: The MOU called on the UK government to prepare for, plan and facilitate constitutional change in each jurisdiction and demanded the right to hold independence referendums. First of all, Northern Ireland is a constituent part of the UK. It is somewhat between a country and a province. However, Northern Ireland and the republic of Ireland cannot just unite or change governments as the procedures were written into the ‘Good Friday Agreement’ which ended the civil war in 1998. But that has not dampened the desire in certain circles for Irish unification.
Wales is another complicated affair. Wales was outright conquered by England (and that was before UK was established) in 1283 and formally annexed in 1535. Finally, 1999 saw Wales having it own government and parliament (devolved government) but still within the UK. Scotland and England were two distinct separate sovereign countries from antiquity. And then Elizabeth I died without having any children (that we know of). James VI (king of Scotland) was selected by Elizabeth to be the next king of England (and Wales) in 1603. Wiki: “On 1 May 1707, Scotland and England combined to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain, with the Parliament of Scotland subsumed into the Parliament of Great Britain. So now Wales, England and Scotland formed the United Kingdom with Ireland sort of a part of England. In 1999, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, and has devolved authority over many areas of domestic policy. Law is even more complicated. Wiki: Scots law has a basis derived from Roman law, combining features of both uncodified civil law, dating back to the Corpus Juris Civilis, and common law with medieval sources. The terms of the Treaty of Union with England in 1707 guaranteed the continued existence of a separate legal system in Scotland from that of England and Wales. A hefty dose of old Norse law, Celtic traditions and Brehon customs can also be found in the Scottish law book.
Here comes the crowning complication: BREXIT! Republic of Ireland is a fully sovereign country and is a member of EU. However, the Good Friday agreement also stipulated that there can be no border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. That is not (actually) possible in the EU. The agreement states that if there is a wish for unification, a referendum can be held but it has to be approved by the (full) UK parliament and the parliament of Ireland. The question is then: will Northern Ireland be absorbed into Ireland and then be a full member of EU and will we then have borders between Northern Ireland and the remnants of UK? Scotland had a referendum on independence in 2014. There is no text in the constitutions providing for a referendum so a special vote had to be held for one-off authorization. The actual referendum vote was a closerun thing with only 55% voting no to independence.
Now comes BREXIT! The vote in 2016 across the UK where the Scottish portion was 62% to remain in the EU. The national UK-wide leave vote was 51,9% and that now became another issue in Scotland. The call for independence became even stronger. Insofar as BREXIT can hardly be called a great success, the call for independence from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales may have its roots in this. The future outside EU is not a great thing if you are a smaller country. But there is more: the oil in the North Sea is closest to Scotland. Scotland has claimed that it is their oil and not the UK’s. An independent Scotland can choose to be a part of the Schengen agreement in EU which is really a totally passport and visa-free mega area (other benefits as well). Ireland has a separate agreement where they can do their own rules because of the ties to the UK (which is not part of EU anymore). It is rather attractive to be a part of and that is perhaps also something that was considered. So was the MOU just a publicity stunt by three nationalistic leaders of the small adjacent parts of the UK. Was it all a part of gaining popularity? Only time will tell!