Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us your Letter to the Editor at [email protected] or filling in this Google form. Submissions should not exceed 400 words, and must include your full name and address, plus a phone number for verification. Amid concerns over
Brexit in the United Kingdom, tensions have emerged between England and Scotland. The Scottish parliament, which had rejected the UK government’s Brexit trade deal, and the pro-independence Scottish National Party, which dominates the Scottish parliament, are pushing for another independence referendum. This could lead to a constitutional crisis, which is rather untimely for the UK, given the
existing challenges.
Upon departing from the European Union, the UK agreed to the Northern Ireland Protocol. But its implementation proved to be a problem for the UK, which this year introduced the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill on June 13. The bill seeks to unilaterally override parts of the protocol that require checks on goods shipped from Britain to Northern Ireland, such that goods destined for Northern Ireland only – and not for onward transport into the European Union – don’t need to go through checks and customs controls required by the EU. The EU, in response, on June 15, launched legal proceedings against the UK.
Nonetheless, the contentious bill has been sent to the House of Lords, even though senior Conservatives criticised it during a debate in the House of Commons. This has fuelled uncertainty over the progression of the bill and more generally over the UK’s future.
The Northern Ireland Protocol episode is just one example of the lack of unity in UK, as political divisions continue to arise. According to the latest
YouGov survey, when asked about the likelihood of voting Conservative at the next election, respondents polled an average of just 3.35 on a scale of 0-10, where 10 meant definitely considering voting for the incumbent party. Futhermore, only
45 per cent of people polled by YouGov at the end of August were confident that the Conservative Party did the right thing in ousting former leader Boris Johnson.
With the economy facing a
long recession and more industrial strikes, the new UK prime minister, Liz Truss, is also having to tackle pressing and chronic issues such as skyrocketing bills, crisis-plagued railways and a beleaguered National Health Service. The UK is surely in need of liberation from its own chains of entanglement.
Still, as Johnson said at No 10 in July, in his speech as the outgoing prime minister, “even if things can sometimes seem dark now, our future together is golden”. With any luck, the UK will make it past this stage of turmoil, as it has always done.
