 In 2019, Theresa May, as everyone will remember her, she was Prime Minister just a few years ago. But she commissioned a report in 2019 on how the union worked and how it could be saved, basically. It was supposed to be written by this guy, Lord Dunlop. And this report was delayed for years and years, it was kind of hidden away in a white hole. Obviously Theresa May had commissioned it, Boris Johnson didn't have much interest in publishing it. But nonetheless, it was published in March this year, this report on saving the union. And it was prepared, obviously, because of a fear among senior Tories and establishment figures generally, that the UK was sleepwalking towards disaster, as it always seems to be, that the political hostility that had been built up between the devolved and central governments in the UK was becoming untenable, that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were kind of being left behind, or there was a sense in those countries that they're being left behind by the UK government, which was increasingly becoming just a government for England, basically. And the threats to the union and the kind of consequences of this sort of division is quite obvious, of course. Support for Scottish independence is at historic highs. It was nearly 60% in polls this time of the last year, and has only kind of fallen back slightly since. And it's seen really continuous growth and instability, basically, in support for Scottish independence, since the 2014 independence referendum, which, you know, CK came back with the majority of people remaining in the United Kingdom, but nonetheless it registered a historic 45% support for independence for Scotland, which of course is a product of a kind of a longer-term rise and stuff like that as well, but as well as a kind of short-term, a real kind of shock to the ruling class that they would jump from the kind of typical levels of around 30% all the way up to nearly 50% in some polls in September 2014. And the SNP, the Scottish National Party, of course, they continue to press their demands. The Tories allow another independence referendum. Their most up-to-date kind of demand is that they want one by about 2023, really, so not next year, but the year after, which realistically means they would have to be either the end of this year or the start of next year, that they would have to start planning for it, basically. But the Tories, of course, they just say no to this proposal, and quite an obvious sign that they have very little confidence that they would be able to win such a referendum. And although it's on a much lower level, and only about kind of 20% support according to some polls, Welsh nationalism has also seen a kind of rise in support quite recently over the past couple of years. In fact, the support for it has doubled over the past five years from about 10%, like I said, to about 20%. And it was in 2019 that the tiny Yes Cymru kind of independence campaign rapidly grew over that year into an organisation of over 10,000 members. It hasn't really done much since. It's been fraught with kind of internal problems, as far as I understand. But nonetheless, it was a big shake up in Welsh politics. And now, in fact, the Welsh government is setting up a constitutional commission to look for itself how the union works, how it works for Wales. And it's authorised, in fact, this commission to explore the other arrangements for the constitution between Wales and the rest of the UK, including whether independence would be the best option for Wales. And in fact, during the kind of Senate elections back in May, the Tories and Labour and I guess the Liberal Democrats to some extent, were looking over their shoulder at Welsh nationalism at this nascent kind of Welsh independence movement. And Plaid Cymru, they came third, of course, in those elections. And on a promise, basically, of holding a referendum. They had the confidence of saying in their manifesto that if we win, we'll have our independence referendum for Wales. And then, of course, in Northern Ireland as well, the kind of careful balance struck by the British and Irish ruling classes between unionism and nationalism by the Good Friday Agreement. It kind of threatens to tip in the wrong direction. Well, the wrong direction for the UK, of course, anyway. And that's kind of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland have kind of transformed themselves, I think, into what appears to be just kind of a reformist party that represents kind of progressive social values. Meanwhile, the Unionist DUP, they have their support base. It becomes increasingly narrow and kind of militantly Unionist in all ways and unwilling to compromise. And in the last Northern Irish Assembly election, you know, Sinn Féin, they nearly became the largest political party. They were kind of one seat short, one seat behind the DUP. But nationalist MLAs in total, like numbers Unionist MLAs, and they still do in the Northern Irish Assembly. And of course, this has led to lots of regular discussion about whether there will be a border poll in Ireland, you know, a unity referendum, basically. Republican figures, of course, they come out and say this all the time and, of course, they support it now. But also a few former Unionist leaders even have come and said, like Peter Robinson, for example, of the DUP, he has come out and said that he expects there to be a border poll or some kind of referendum on Irish unity in the next 10 to kind of 20 years. And even the government of the south of Ireland has said they're preparing for it, partly in response to the growing popularity of Sinn Féin in the south as well. But also the kind of the situation in the north. And I went and practiced their preparations, though, are about pouring cold water over Sinn Féin's ideas, trying to kind of problematize the issue of Irish unity, make it seem like it would be some big intractable, you know, process that would be, you know, take decades and would not be this active kind of renewal, I guess, that Sinn Féin portrays it as. And they do this because they're as in Britain, really. The ruling class, they fear how constitutional questions and national questions can change, you know, and constitutional nationalists kind of change, can raise the spectre, really, that we're all familiar with, of course, but of demands for social change as well, that can become a social problem, not just the kind of really, you know, constitutional one as it's kind of called. But the ruling class in Britain, you know, they discuss quite openly their worry that their country, their United Kingdom, may not survive the turbulent historic period that we're in and may not survive these kind of threats that are popping up. And it's through, kind of, you know, the editorials and opinion pieces across the spectrum of bourgeois politics and the bourgeois press that we see them kind of rang about this year in the Financial Times, really, to the Daily Mail. There have been articles throughout the year about whether the United Kingdom will break up, whether it's, you know, whether the time is running out, really. And it's even in, like, international press, as well, that I've noticed. They report on this crisis. They have long, thoughtful pieces about, you know, Britain is, you know, a diminishing kind of player on the world stage, and they're all kind of speculating about will it fracture entirely and will Britain kind of cease to exist as it does? So there's either articles in, you know, Bloomberg, the LA Times, the New York Times, El País, the Global Times, the Lots of Times. But, and they all say the same things. To use a phrase that The Guardian did, they said, really, it's stress levels critical for the Union, and it only seems to be getting worse, really. And in the British press, I mean, in, well, in Scottish editions, you know, they write about how Scotland, mainly, is too poor and too, you know, small to be an independent country. But in the UK editions is where they wring their hands over this question over what a loss kind of Scotland would be. If not in kind of the economic terms, then mainly, I guess, in terms of the loss of prestige for Britain and for the British ruling class. And a real kind of an embarrassment, really, for, like, British capitalists. And a really kind of outward and unmissable sign to the rest of the capitalist class around the world, I guess, that things are not well in the UK. And they're fully aware that the consequences, really, would be more than just, like, monetary, in terms of, like, the Scottish economy breaking away from the UK or whatever. They write, of course, about, like, a potential domino effect if calls for self-determination in Scotland, you know, grow and if Scotland manages to break away. Then, you know, in Northern Ireland and Wales, obviously it could be a similar kind of, you know, demand. They also are kind of in English regions as well. They worry about, you know, demands for more decision-making power to be taken away from London and Westminster. You know, they write about how it could destabilise the monarchy, how it could destabilise Parliament, the military even, and basically many of the other institutions of the British state that were kind of founded by the Union between Scotland and England in 1707. And it's looking down the barrel, really, of this potential future that establishment voices, a lot of them, are really pleading for some kind of a reform, really, constitutional reform to try and kind of cut across these tendencies. You know, Gordon Brown, again, he might remember another former Prime Minister, who went from one of the most popular Labour politicians in Scotland to, without a doubt, one of the most hated because of his staunch defence of the Union and is kind of, you know, basically siding with the Tories and so on to oppose independence, has said that the UK must either become a reformed state or a failed state. That's the stark kind of terms that they're putting this in. And Lord Dunlop's reports that I started talking about, it also contains this advice saying that there's no room for complacency on this question. They can't just ignore it. They can't just act like, you know, just continue to say no and refuse to acknowledge the problem. But what meager kind of things, and the Lord Dunlop's report that he recommends, really, the Tories have kind of already tried over the past couple of years. You know, Boris Johnson has named himself Minister of the Union, as if that's going to do anything. In number 10, and down the street, they set up kind of various union units, at times headed by, you know, anonymous civil servants, or by, you know, Michael Gove, that have kind of been set up and then, you know, reformed and changed. It's been very inconsistent. As well as kind of subcommittees of the Cabinet and of government departments, even, as well. They've sought to basically try and find ways to use the machinery of government, really, to, you know, to use it against, well, Scottish nationalism in particular, really. And, you know, we got a taste of what this was like, you know, last week with Rishi Sunak's budget, you know, which he called a budget for the Union and made a big kind of deal, a big appeal about that, basically. That was, you know, widely reported on in Scotland, at least. I know the things they've done, you know, they've moved, like, civil service jobs out of London, you know, they've moved, like, 500, like, Department of International Trade Jobs, or something like that to Glasgow, this kind of thing. And started a kind of online propaganda campaign, as well, in Scotland, which is quite a bizarre kind of thing. You know, we see adverts, I do anyway, a lot of them. Maybe there's targeting me in particular. From, on Facebook, from the UK government in Scotland, you know, this is, like, the new brand, it's not just the UK government, it's not just, like, the Westminster government, it's, you know, it's your government in Scotland, you know, where the other Scottish government is what they're trying to say. And they use it to kind of show off projects. It's interesting, it's got, like, a little kind of, I don't know, like, a little kind of unique logo and everything, which is derived somewhat from, like, the Scottish kind of royal seal and everything. It's really kind of strange. They put a lot of effort into this, but I don't think it's really working. But they put a lot of effort in this kind of, this branding and propaganda campaign about the UK government in Scotland and, you know, how the UK works for Scotland and blah, blah, blah. To show off kind of projects and funds and whatever else government kind of things that are already sponsored by the UK government. Which, you know, they say all this compliments devolution, you know, shows how the union works for Scotland and all governments are working together. But, you know, it caused a big, you know, rye with the SNP, who they say that this kind of stuff just undermines devolution, in fact. And tries to sideline the Scottish government and the powers of the Scottish parliament to, you know, invest in these kind of things in Scotland. And they're directly really trying to kind of compete, I guess, with the Scottish government in Scotland. But many of these kind of things, they've tried already these little kind of schemes to try and undermine support for Scottish independence, you know. They're, of course, a far cry from the real kind of calls for federalism or whatever else. That's kind of Gordon Brown, the kind of, you know, left wing, I guess, of the Unionist establishment, have to say. And really, there's, I think, no hope for this kind of reform in the UK, you know. I think there are a lot of people in the Labour movement and stuff who have some kind of illusions in this idea of, you know, British federalism and stuff like that. But there's no hope for it, I think, at the moment. Because, at least of all, really, the Tories are simply just not interested in any kind of reform. You know, the open disdain that the Tories feel towards devolution, well, towards the idea of reforming the Constitution anyway, was revealed when Boris Johnson, he was caught calling devolution a disaster in one of his kind of, you know, I don't know, like, quite a hot-nike moment, but these things just kind of become rumoured that he says this stuff in cabinet, and then obviously comes out and denies it. And it's been caught multiple times doing this. But he called it disaster, and he said, you know, it was the worst thing that Tony Blair ever did, you know, as if the war and stuff never happens, you know. And this, like I said, was condemned, of course. They said, of course, Boris Johnson would never say this. He's the minister of the Union. And number 10, they came out and they denied it. But to be honest, it's a rare case of Tory honesty when he calls devolution a disaster, because devolution was really intended to try and cut across kind of rising nationalist movements, in Scotland in particular, and sort of undermine or solve somewhat, I guess, this demand for political decisions to be taken away from Westminster, really, and given out to the regions and nations of the UK. But instead, really, they've become a focal point for these things. You know, you can see that with the Scottish Parliament and the absolute dominance of the SNP. That's why they call it a disaster, because it has been a disaster for them and for this attempt to save the Union or preserve it in the long term through this previous attempt at constitutional reform, really. And yeah, it's been a focal point for what was denounced and is continually denounced as grievance politics, you know, demanding decisions can be taken closer to home or whatever. It was this phrase that was used in 2014 and I think probably did a lot to boost Scottish independence because people don't like just being told, like, when you want change, it's just like a grievance of yours, you know. It's not serious, however. But the stories, they never really supported this reform either in the first place. You know, they opposed devolution in the 1997 referendum in Scotland. But now, I guess, all they can do really is point out how it has backfired and as Scottish nationalism has continued to kind of grow. Very much at the expense, of course, of the Labour Party that originally planned this idea of devolution and then supported it. And any reform, really, that would actually give power to the Scottish Parliament, the Tories will oppose, you know, and they've kind of said they will. And they know, really, that opposing that and denying a new independence referendum as well, they know it goes down really well with their reactionary support base, really. You know, these kind of, as we've, you know, I guess, discussed over the years, you know, Suvalide Lunes is what David Cameron called them, you know, the Hangam Floggan Brigade and Rob Sewell calls them. These kind of little Englanders, you know, that are now the real kind of core of the Tory Party membership and its supporters and, you know, Philip, Conservative associations or wherever throughout the country. You know, they're more interested in seeing Boris, you know, crush the rebellious Scots as the anthem goes than any reform that, you know, the more thoughtful, more thinking members of the ruling class believe, you know, might actually save the Union in the long term, whether it would or not. I guess this attitude really, like, is what gives the capitalists real kind of nightmares about their party, about the Conservatives. You know, they have very little faith that Boris Johnson and the current crop of Tory politicians will truly represent the long-term interests of capitalism in Britain or if they will just kind of sacrifice them for the kind of short-term political victories and the kind of spoils, really, of being in government. You know, we've seen, they're all just kind of dipping their fingers into the pot, you know, free, flat renovations and so on. And it's been in several polls, basically, from 2017 onwards, probably earlier, but they've been, you know, in 2018-2019. I've shown that the majority of Tory party voters, you know, it was two-thirds in some cases. You know, they had said that they are willing to accept, basically, Scotland or Northern Ireland no longer being a part of the United Kingdom. They were just, like, indifferent to it as the price of Brexit, basically. And we can't really talk, I think, about, like, the breakup of the UK with, like, mentioning Brexit. The 2016 votes obviously played a kind of hugely exacerbating kind of factor in the Scottish National Question in particular, but also just contributed further to this crisis in the British state, really, and crisis in the Union. Scotland, you know, as people will probably know, voted by a comfortable majority, really, to remain in the EU. And pro-EU sentiment is generally higher in Scotland. You know, there's never really been, like, a trend of kind of Euroscepticism or anything in any kind of meaningful way. And this, of course, is kind of, you know, fostered in Scotland by the SNP, who are very pro-EU, by Labour, by the Liberal Democrats, of course. But even the Scottish Tories are kind of less enamoured with Brexit. You know, they supported a much kind of softer Brexit, especially under, you know, their previous leader, Ruth Davidson. She was kind of a close ally of Theresa May in trying to build support in the Tory party for her withdrawal agreement, which, of course, many of the backbenchers, the most fervent Brexiteers, they rejected as, you know, Brexit in name only or whatever else. And in fact, the current leader of the Scottish Tories, he, you know, he quit from his position in the government because he didn't support the, you know, Boris Johnson's Brexit policies. But, and in fact, you know, they refused to allow Boris Johnson to come up for the 2021 Scottish Parliament election campaign. You know, they know that when people see Boris Johnson, you know, they see Mr. Brexite, you know, they see Mr. Hurley immunity. And they see, you know, the kind of the Godfather, really, of Tory party corruption. And a man who does more damage to the Unionist cause than, you know, when he opens his mouth, than Nicola Sturgeon does, basically. And they openly kind of talk about this, not the Scottish Tories, of course, they would never defame their leader in such a way. But in the Financial Times and so on, this guy, you know, Philip Stevens is one of their main political reports, and he's always talking about how Boris Johnson is like one of the worst things the Union has to put up with, basically, because of how he repels people, I guess. But the Brexit really, it served as a kind of stark restatement of the, for many people anyway, of the democratic deficit that there is kind of in the UK, that Scotland, you know, doesn't get the governments that it votes for and so on, and doesn't get the kind of policies that it votes for, you know. In fact, you know, the Tories, they haven't won an election in Scotland since the 1960s, and they haven't pulled more than a million votes even in Scotland since the 1970 general election. And now they're kind of on just about like half of a million votes at the very most. And it's really just like a political cliché, of course, that the Tories are a kind of toxic brand in Scotland, you know. I feel like if you looked up Tory in a Scottish dictionary, that would be the phrase that you would see, you know. It's something people just say like, you know, like a reaction really. But, and of course the results really of the, you know, like the 2016 Brexit, you know, referendum or whatever. You know, they now mean that Scotland, you know, was taken out of the European Union, you know, against the will of the majority in Scotland. But not the majority of the UK, of course. England vastly kind of outvotes Scotland. And this kind of polarization, you know, over Brexit, you know, that, you know, really caused trouble for, you know, like the Labour Party and stuff, for example, actually really kind of boosted Scottish nationalism and support for Scottish independence. You know, it painted very clearly this picture of, you know, two countries that are kind of unhappily together, but on very two different kind of paths, I guess, was how it sort of was portrayed. And Scotland kind of rejoining the EU has now become like a central plank, of course, of like the SNP's platform. And it's kind of case for independence. You know, the Bores while leaders of the party, you know, tell what, in my opinion, is like, is a really big lie. And saying that Scotland, you know, could easily just kind of rejoin the EU on the same terms that the Britain left. And really, I think this is as much a lie as anything the leave campaign ever said. But regardless anyway, Brexit is important in that it's stretched the UK to its constitutional limits in more ways than one, not just this question over Scotland, you know. Not just how Scotland voted, but this ongoing debacle, of course, over the UK-EU border that runs through Ireland, you know, over the protocol and so on is causing no end of grief. And big events, you know, that really undermined a little legitimacy, I think, of like the state and so on. Like the prorogation of Parliament, everyone remembers. And also the kind of repatriation of like EU powers, you know. These things, they both saw legal challenges, you know, led by the Scottish and Welsh devolved governments, basically. And Brexit, of course, in general, really, showed how the political leadership of the capitalist class in Britain has so degenerated, really. You know, as British capitalism itself has kind of declined, that they're now kind of mainly formed up of kind of cliques and factions, really, that care more for themselves and their kind of immediate sponsors than for the interests of the capitalist class as a whole, for the supposed national interest, I guess. But to finish speaking about Brexit, but, you know, in this situation, just as when things seemingly couldn't get, I guess, any worse, and, I guess, in Boris Johnson's opinion, just as he thought he'd overcome the last obstacle and advised the power by winning the 2019 general election, just then this pandemic sweeps across the world, which has had a really serious impact and has really fed into, I think, this crisis for the Union. Because it just further added, really, to the contradictions that already had kind of built up. You know, as Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson, they very publicly differed in their kind of style of handling the crisis, so in reality they made a lot of the same mistakes. You know, the cracks even began to show in England itself, I think, as Andy Burnham and kind of other region leaders in England openly rebelled against the Tory government's policies, its lockdown policies, and said they wanted to have the ability to take their own decisions about these kind of things over healthcare and whatever else. The Tory party itself became very, very divided over this, you know, as these northern English kind of former red wall Tory MPs, they complained about, you know, oh, there's a bias in what the government does towards the south-east and London. And they were basically told by their colleagues in the south-east of England and London to like or lump it, basically. But Brexit and this coronavirus pandemic, they wouldn't really serve to accelerate ways of the fundamental crisis, really. This crisis of the union, you know, crisis of unionism. You know, the contradictions really of British capitalism, I think, have produced these centrifugal kind of tendencies as many people have called them. That threatened to break up or, at the very least, kind of radically alter the shape of, if just Scotland breaks away, the British state itself, really. And I think this cannot be anything other than the result of Britain's historic decline, really, of the crisis of capitalism, generally, just as Brexit, I guess, was a kind of consequence of this. And to go into a few of them, I guess, you know, Ireland, of course, was Britain's first colony and it's kind of lost the majority of that. We'll see it's not a kind of same process, really. And the kind of six counties in Northern Ireland that remain a part of the UK, you know, are already on the easy piece. And they really have kind of more symbolic meaning to the British rule class than the kind of real worth. Wales has been fused to England since, well, I guess since time immemorial, I don't know. But it was really like the merger between Scotland and England in 1707, the formation of the union as we know it. That laid the basis for the modern British state. And really the kind of prerequisite for the development of British capitalism itself, as well, of kind of the British Industrial Revolution and the formation of the British Empire and so on, or its expansion at least. And the reasons are kind of too numerous, I think, to go over here. And they'll be covered in other talks this weekend, you know, certainly. Rob talked a lot about it on Friday night. But I think it's undeniable that the United Kingdom is slipping now from, you know, what was a second rate of power to a third rate one in the world after Brexit and everything. And this crisis of unionism, I think, is a kind of consequence of that. You know, it's the decades, really, of deindustrialisation and austerity that have devastated many of these places across the British Isles, across Britain, where calls for self-determination or for independence, really, are the loudest. And the myths and the lies that the bourgeois tell about the union, that it's based on a family of nations, that it's based on solidarity, even they go as far as to say, you know, in 2014 they made this big deal Labour Party especially, to say, oh, you know, Scotland has got to be part of the UK because the UK is all about redistributing and sharing wealth and so on. But these kind of lies and so on, they have almost nothing in common, or they have nothing in common, with the harsh reality of British capitalism, with the corruption and opportunism of politics, you know, the exploitation and immiseration that the working class sees every day as part of this country. And it's for this reason, I think, the crisis of the union is not just a kind of a constitutional one, but it is a social crisis, it's rooted in the social crisis of capitalism itself. So, for millions of people, really, the idea of breaking out of the UK and social progress in general are closely bound together. In fact, a lot of people think you can't really have one without the other. And this is a real kind of dangerous situation, of course, for the union and for the capitalist class. You know, it creates a situation where any social unrest and of course the social decay of the country just feeds further and further into a kind of tendency towards the UK breaking out. They fear this opening of the floodgates, potentially, if Scotland becomes independent or if there's a real kind of determined struggle for self-determination, for a referendum or however, wherever a form that kind of takes. And it's because the national question, you know, as Lenin said, is ultimately a question of bread. This is kind of phrased, you know, material conditions are really the working class and how they kind of change. And the capitalists, I think, are really beginning to understand this. And it fills them with dread, really, about the future of the United Kingdom and about the union. But on the contrary for us, it fills us, you know, with hope, I think. Not because we have any illusions in nationalism, you know. Of course not, you know. For us, any national movements for kind of self-determination has significance, really, only in how it transforms the consciousness of the working class. That it becomes an outlet for working class anger against capitalism, albeit in a kind of semi-conscious or distorted kind of way. But this anger that many people feel towards the union as well, it's worth saying just at the end here. We'll turn on the bourgeois nationals, Stephen, you know, in turn, when they are forced to kind of betray, you know, the sincere hopes of the working class who, you know, will put them in power and put them in a position to make big decisions about the future of, you know, Scotland or Wales or whatever that does become independent. As they must do, basically, in order to maintain capitalism in this epoch of crisis and decay of capitalism. But I think all of this crisis in the union, really, and the potential future all of it really just underlines, I think, our duty to build the forces of Marxism that will be needed throughout this kind of process of kind of deep constitutional and social change in crisis were needed, really, to expose the falsehoods of the ruling class and ultimately, really, to unite the working class on the basis of the struggle for international socialism. I'll leave it there.