Five years ago, on January 31, 2020, Brexit happened. If all the polls are to be believed, a majority of Britons today regret this historic choice. Yet the most dramatic of the predictions made by experts and opponents about leaving the European Union (EU) have not come true.
Brexit has not led to a sharp economic downturn, even if it has put the brakes on trade with the EU, the country’s main partner, limiting its capacity for growth. Nor has Brexit triggered the break-up of the United Kingdom: Scottish independence remains a distant prospect, and there is neither a majority nor a sense of urgency in the Republic of Ireland, as in Northern Ireland, for a reunification of the island of Ireland.
The 2016 Brexit referendum did, however, give Scottish pro-independence activists a strong argument. They were calling for a second referendum on their independence after the one in 2014 (55% of voters had then opted to remain within the UK), on the grounds that the situation had fundamentally changed.
Overwhelmingly pro-European – voting 62% to remain in the EU – the Scots saw their destiny thwarted by the English Brexiters’ vote. British leaders, led by Boris Johnson, also fueled the Scots’ rejection of government concentrated in London, between Westminster and Downing Street, and paying little heed to regional sensibilities and identities. From 2020 onwards, polls in favor of independence began to hover around 50%.
Divisions and scandals in the SNP
The pro-independence winds are partly waning. After 17 years in control of the regional government in Edinburgh, the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) is finding it increasingly difficult to justify its mixed record. It has done much to reduce poverty (particularly child poverty), but waiting times at the National Health Service (NHS) Scotland are still longer than at NHS England, and Scotland still holds the sad record for the highest number of overdose deaths in Europe.
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