At the start of 2014, I began this column with the words: “This year, the United Kingdom could be voted out of existence.” Repetition is not usually a good idea in my trade but, in my first column of 2015, I am tempted to use exactly the same sentence.
It might happen thus. At the general election in May, Labour become the largest single party, without a majority of the seats in England. They cannot command a majority in Parliament. To govern, they make a deal with the Scottish Nationalists to whom they have just lost, say, 20 seats. Ed Miliband becomes Prime Minister, but only with the support of one Alex Salmond, a newly elected MP.
The English, I suspect, would not stand for this. They would grudgingly accept a Labour government without an English majority, dependent on its own Scottish MPs. That is the price of the Union. They would not stomach being governed by separatists from another country. The pressure for English independence – to use a phrase scarcely imaginable – would become overwhelming. The legitimacy of the UK Government could collapse.
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