THE TABLET THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY FOUNDED IN 1840

THE CORONATION

CAN CHARLES MEND HIS DISUNITED KINGDOM?

I n two weeks’ time His Majesty King Charles III will be crowned sovereign of his United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, watched globally on television by many millions. It will undoubtedly be a “happy and glorious” occasion, as the National Anthem will lustily declare. But how “united” is his kingdom? And indeed, how “great”? Would it not be a more honest description of the event to say he was being crowned King of England? It is after all a religious service under the auspices of the Church of England, which has no constitutional status in his other constituencies, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Yet in many ways it is England’s place in the kingdom that is problematical. When the Scots talk of independence, as they frequently do, they do not mean independence from Wales or Northern Ireland. When Ulster Unionists talk of maintaining their place in the kingdom, the union they are referring to is with England (or to be exact, with a particular mythology of England as an enclave and bulwark of Protestantism). Nevertheless, pride in being English does not rely on the regard of the Scots or Welsh. It seems to depend more on beating Germany at football and Australia at cricket (neither is guaranteed).

In sport, as in religion, the United Kingdom is already disunited. Apart from the Olympic Games, in international competitions in all the major team sports the four nations play separately, and compete fiercely against each other. Ulster’s rugby players play for the combined all-Ireland team, and Ulster rugby fans cheered them on to victory over the English at Dublin last month. It is as if the United States were to field 50 sports teams, one for each state of the Union; or Canada 13, one for each province or territory. As for religion, there is an English church by law established, and a Scottish church equally so but entirely different in ecclesiology, and equally separate from its independent Episcopal (Anglican) Church. The (Anglican) Church in Wales stands free of the state; Anglicanism in Northern Ireland forms part of the Church of Ireland, which also spans the Republic to the south – where it is a small minority.

T hese anomalies are so familiar as to be forgotten by the English, even when they loom large in the various nationalisms of its other components that aspire to pull the United Kingdom apart. It could even be that having a complex identity with several nationalisms held in balance is one of the ways the kingdom has stayed together. The British can usually comfortably hold on to several identities at once, either overlapping or even contradictory. One can be both British and Scottish. It is a characteristic of separatist movements to try to bend these anomalies and contradictions until they break, as in the case of the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Until the dust settles it is impossible to predict how much damage the current internal party crisis will do to the cause of Scottish independence. To translate it from a noble dream to a solid political reality the SNP would need to answer hard questions that so far it has been able to sideline. What currency would an independent Scotland use, and what national bank? What chance would it have of European Union membership? What customs and immigration borders with England would it need? Would the global phasing out of

fossil fuels undermine the claim that North Sea oil and gas would make an independent Scotland economically viable? What defence forces – ground, sea and air – ought an independent Scottish state to maintain? A Scotland confident that a united SNP government, which had the competence and skill to address these issues, would make independence sound realistic. A Scotland disillusioned by the internal state of the SNP, with police enquiries probing the very heart of its operation, with acrimonious disunity and a whiff of corruption in the air, strikes a very different note.

The Irish relationship with England is a useful parallel with Scotland’s, as it achieved the independence Scottish nationalists are seeking more than a century ago – except for the six counties left behind, where a majority demanded that ties to England be maintained. As in Scotland, nationalism in Northern Ireland means independence from England, but in this case it also means unification with the Republic – there is little support for a totally independent Northern Ireland along SNP lines.

Recent polls both in Northern Ireland itself and the Republic indicate that Irish unification could happen within 10 years, though there are doubts about the practicalities. There is a distinction between sentiment and realism – the polls indicate that many voters in the Republic would change their minds on Irish unity if it meant higher taxes. Given that Dublin would have to make good the loss of Northern Ireland’s subsidy from the rest of the UK, currently worth £15 billion a year, tax rises would be inevitable. And becoming responsible for policing rival Northern Irish factions is a fearsome prospect.

The main driver of these predictions of unity in 10 years comes from statistical projections of the growth of population among the culturally Protestant community compared with the Catholic one. A Catholic majority seems inevitable in a decade, but it would be a mistake to assume that that would automatically produce a majority for reunification in a referendum. The law obliges the UK government to conduct such a referendum when it judges such a majority to exist. It is part of the Good Friday Agreement. But if the history of the Troubles teaches anything, it is that it is most unwise for a majority to impose its will on a minority. The result is almost invariably civil disorder.

To change this situation would require a sustained campaign in the Irish Republic to woo Northern Protestant opinion, not least by dispelling the residual anti-British feeling that lingers on in Irish life and culture. But there is no sign of such a campaign. If anything, Brexit has made things worse. One lesson of the recent visit of President Joe Biden is that stirring up anti-British (that is, anti-English) feelings in the South has a negative effect on Unionists in the North.

Yet not least of the problems is that anti-English feelings undeniably have a firm basis in history. And that is true in Scotland too. Perhaps it could be part of the mission of King Charles to help England recognise – as well as its many strengths and achievements – its historical faults and failings, and to help the rest of his Kingdom to forgive it for them. A dose of English mea culpa – and a little less arrogant incomprehension – might be what it takes to keep his kingdom in one piece.