The Union and the state: Contested visions of the UK’s future

The UK remains highly unusual among advanced market democracies in that it willingly contemplates its own break-up in its constitutional framework. And the UK’s territorial constitution has just survived a decade of extraordinary turbulence. It remains highly vulnerable, and some sort of reckoning – or at least a revival of debate about the UK’s contested territorial future – is likely in the 2030s. Whether the UK survives in its current form or, alternatively, what it will look like if it doesn’t stay together, will hinge on which of various starkly contrasting visions for its future prevails. That, in turn, will be determined by how effectively various levers of statecraft are used. 

This paper is in three parts. 

• Part 1 analyses the current state of the Union. 
• Part 2 then analyses the competing visions for the UK’s future. 
• Part 3 then looks at what strategies and levers of government can be used to further each of the competing visions.