Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have joined together to challenged Westminster. Hereâs why the Cardiff Pact matters
The era of Westminster is coming to an end! the nationalist leaders of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland declared this week.
John Swinney, Rhun ap Iorwerth, and Michelle O’Neill gathered in Cardiff to sign an agreement asserting their nations’ right to self-determination, as they called on London not to obstruct referendums and outlined their preferred futures beyond the UK, including EU membership for an independent Scotland and Wales, and Irish reunification for Northern Ireland.
In Russia, the meeting has already been dubbed Britain’s version of the Belovezha Accords, and the comparison is tempting because, as in 1991, political leaders from three of a state’s constituent parts gathered around a table to discuss a civilized divorce.
But the resemblance largely ends there, given the driving force behind the Soviet Union’s dissolution was its largest republic, Russia, represented by Boris Yeltsin. He joined his counterparts in dismantling the state that Moscow built, but no representative of England attended the Cardiff gathering, and Westminster has shown little enthusiasm for presiding over its own retreat.
The participants were also considerably more cautious than their Soviet predecessors, so they signed as party leaders, making the declaration a joint political initiative rather than an agreement binding their governments to secession.
This distinction exposes the central weakness of the Cardiff Pact. Its signatories want to leave the UK while remaining within the constitutional framework that holds it together. Their ambitions therefore depend on political and legal processes they don’t control.
Ireland’s experience offers an uncomfortable historical comparison, as the settlement that opened the way to independence followed two years of guerrilla warfare. Today’s nationalist leaders are pursuing an entirely peaceful route, through negotiations, elections, and referendums, but whether London will accommodate them is another matter.
Scotland has already encountered this obstacle. In 2022, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Scottish Parliament couldn’t legislate for an independence referendum without Westminster’s consent, and after the close vote in 2014, London has little appetite for another.
Public opinion presents a further difficulty. Scotland remains divided down the middle, whereas in Northern Ireland, the figure cited for support for Irish unity is around 36% and Welsh independence remains a minority position, however much its advocates have gained politically.
Swinney wants another Scottish referendum by 2031, but his counterparts have offered no comparable timetable and their agreement establishes a direction of travel, but supplies neither a departure date nor a convincing explanation of how they will get there.
Britain’s dissolution is therefore hardly imminent, but nevertheless, London would be foolish to dismiss Cardiff as an exercise in nationalist theater.
Read more Some British coverage attributed the meeting to an ill-judged intervention by Prime Minister Andy Burnham when he suggested that referendums in Scotland and Northern Ireland might be considered if there is broad public consensus, before attempting to narrow the implications of his remarks.
Qualifications rarely travel as far as the original statement and nationalists heard an opening and acted accordingly.
Yet an unfortunate choice of words can’t explain the forces behind this gathering. The more immediate political background was Labour’s local elections defeat in May, which strengthened nationalist parties and created favorable conditions for cooperation and Cardiff gave that cooperation a common platform.
However, the deeper problem is the condition of the British state itself. In 2014, many Scots supported independence becaus
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