Professor Michael Kenny of Bennett Institute for Public Policy at Cambridge University and the ESRC Centre on Constitutional Change assesses the implications of Boris Johnson’s Premiership on the Union.

“The last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom”. This damning, but also hopeful, judgement of the implications of a Boris Johnson Premiership from the SNP’s Westminster Leader Ian Blackford, expresses a sentiment that is widely held in UK politics, and is not confined to Scottish nationalist circles.

In fact, this particular outcome is very unlikely given how long – as we are currently learning – it takes countries to leave unions of which they are members. But it is undoubtedly true that his tenure in office will have a very significant impact upon the increasingly strained internal politics of the union, and could well ignite major political crises about the constitutional positions of Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is highly unlikely that Boris will be the PM who oversees the break-up of Britain; but he may well go down in history as the catalyst for its dissolution.

So what does Johnson have to do to make sure that he does not become the leader who sends the UK to the brink?

In his election campaign he joined some of the other contenders in…

Continue at the Centre on Constitutional Change

Image by Adam Derewecki from Pixabay.