Never mind Brexit — Boris Johnson’s biggest battle is over Scotland

Unless he wants to be the last prime minister of the United Kingdom, Johnson must head off pressure for a second independence vote.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with her newly elected SNP MPs in Dundee. Picture: AFP

Even as it celebrates a mighty triumph, the British Conservative Party should recognise that its election success comes laced with danger. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has won a tremendous victory — but only in England and Wales.

Scotland is a different matter and, increasingly, a different country, too. He now faces a constitutional impasse that may yet become a crisis, the resolution of which will go a long way towards determining the success or failure of his time in office.

Delivering Brexit is one thing; ensuring that he is not the last prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland quite another. Johnson has spoken about One Nation Conservatism but Scotland will be the testing ground for the seriousness and credibility of that commitment.

The Scottish National Party’s victory north of the border has put the union in fresh jeopardy and the sense of estrangement between Edinburgh and London, evident since the independence referendum five years ago, is more apparent than ever this weekend.

The Prime Minister may very well discover that beating Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was the easy part compared with seeing off the SNP.

It cannot be stressed too often that it is Brexit, and Brexit alone, which has revived the independence cause. If not for Brexit, Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, would have no basis on which to argue for another referendum on Scottish independence. England (and Wales) voted to leave while Scotland opted to remain and the future of the UK is in doubt all over again because of that — and only because of that.

For now, the irresistible force of the SNP’s election success meets the immovable object of the UK government’s disinclination to accede to the demand for a new referendum. The vote in 2014 was, as the SNP said at the time, a “once in a generation” event. This is true and a substantial objection to another referendum. But Brexit is precisely the kind of “material change in circumstance” that the SNP claims justifies Scotland having the chance to change its mind.

Even so, the UK government’s line will hold for now, not least because there is no immediate and overwhelming appetite in Scotland for a second referendum. But it may not hold forever — especially if pro-independence parties win a majority at the 2021 Holyrood election. The precedent set after the SNP victory in 2011 makes it hard to deny a moral right to hold another referendum. In such circumstances “London says no” would force a kind of captivity on Scotland that, I wager, would not end well for unionism.

The next Scottish parliamentary elections, then, are a game for all the prizes. Polling suggests that although it might be a nip and tuck affair, the SNP and Greens would have a better-than-even chance of securing that majority. This is so even though the SNP will by then have been in office in Edinburgh for 14 years and will be the owners of a less-than-persuasive record on key devolved areas such as health and education.

In the meantime, however, there will be some shadow boxing. Sturgeon might demand a second independence referendum next year but she knows she is unlikely to achieve it. Neither side, in fact, has any great interest in holding a referendum next year because neither can be certain of winning it. The risks of losing are too great to make it an attractive gamble for ­either unionists or nationalists.

This is a long game, however. The UK will not break apart in 2020 but the manner in which Johnson’s government responds to the SNP’s challenge may yet have some hefty impact on its longer-term prospects for survival.

To that end, the Prime Minister is in possession of a report, written by the former Scotland Office minister Lord Dunlop, which makes several dozen recommendations for how the union might be promoted and strengthened by the government.

Above all, however, this is a struggle for command of public opinion. At present, as Sturgeon knows full well, there is little enthusiasm for another referendum.

She bets, however, that a combination of Brexit and London’s intransigence will eventually inflame Scottish opinion to the point where the demand for a new opportunity to consider independence becomes all but irresistible.

In the longer term, time is on Sturgeon’s side. With every passing year the electoral roll becomes a little more friendly to the SNP as Tory pensioners are replaced by SNP teenagers. Polls suggest no more than one in seven Scots under 50 back the Tories while more than half endorse the SNP. That fact alone should concentrate unionist minds.

So too should the fact that support for independence has steadily increased to the point that current polls indicate that the survival of the UK is not much more than an even-money proposition.

That being so, it is Brexit that has caused this crisis and the rewards of delivering Brexit in a way that satisfies public opinion in Eng­land must be offset against the damage it inflicts on the stability and viability of the union. That is a high-stakes, high-risk gamble.

The UK is, in reality, united in name only this weekend. The scale of Johnson’s victory in England and Wales is matched by the SNP’s triumph in Scotland.

That is enough to ensure that Scotland and the future of the UK is the biggest, most significant, challenge that the Prime Minister faces.

The Sunday Times