 I'm Susan Murray, director of the David Hume Institute, and I'd like to welcome you all to the 2022 Festival of Politics. This year's event celebrates the festival's 18th year of thought-provoking, inspiring and informing people of all ages from every walk of life to engage in the three days of spirited debate. We're delighted that you're able to join us today to participate in the State of the Union panel, and later I'll be inviting you all to get involved with some questions. If you're keen to continue to throw your thoughts out there, please do so on Twitter with the hashtag FOP 2022, and I'm very pleased to be joined by our panelists. Now, just before I introduce them, they've asked me to do one thing. Now, we know from the audience we've got quite a few people from Scotland, just because between the four of us we recognise some people in the room. But we'd like to know if you've ever been to Sattu, what they do is get people to say hello from wherever they are in the world, and we think we've got quite a spread of people involved. So I can either do this by shouting out countries and you put your hands up, or you could just randomly say names of countries and we'll see if we can hear them. So what works for you if I say, is there anyone here from England? Any hands up? Anyone here from Wales? Anyone from Northern Ireland? Anyone from the Republic of Ireland? Anyone from France? Germany? Spain? Anywhere else in Europe I've not mentioned? Italy? I'm sorry, I'm Italy. Anyone from America? Is it really bad to just say, rest of the world? Rest of the world, just shout out the country you're from, if there's anyone here. Right, so mainly European audience, that's quite really useful for us to know. New Zealand, ah, thank you. If I had a prize, I'd be presenting it to you for coming all the way from New Zealand today. Thank you very much for coming. You are very welcome to the Scottish Parliament. So now, we've had a bit of fun, it's useful for the panellists to know that. But I'd like to introduce you to Michael Keaton. Michael is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen. He was founding director of the Centre for Constitutional Change. And he's taught at several universities including Strathclyde, Western Ontario, the European University Institute and is a fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Academy of Social Science and of the European Academy. Professor Keaton is the author or editor of many books on Scottish Politics, European Politics, Nationalism and Regionalism. His most recent book is The State and Nation in the United Kingdom, The Fractured Union and it's published by Oxford University Press in 2021. Nicola is next on the panel, Nicola is Professor of Territorial Politics at the University of Edinburgh and fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She is a fellow and was founding co-director of the Centre for Constitutional Change and is based at the University of Edinburgh. And last but not least is Lisa. Dr Lisa Claire Whitten is a research fellow on the ESRC funded project Governance for a Place Between, the multi-level dynamics of implementing the protocol on Northern Ireland and Ireland based at Queen's University Belfast. Please join me in welcoming them. So now without further ado, Michael you're going to kick us off by saying a few words. Would you like to set the scene for us? Thanks Susan and good evening. Since this is a panel on the State of the Union I just want to say a few words about what we mean by a union, the union, why unionists seem to no longer understand what the union is and why the greatest threat to the union is post currently not by nationalists but by unionists themselves. Now let's take a few elements of understanding what we mean by the United Kingdom being a union. We mean that the United Kingdom is not a nation state in the way Denmark or Norway or somewhere might be a nation state. There's not a single nation, a single people, a single demos. It's a multinational or plurinational union of peoples. Now most of you are from Scotland. This is absolutely banal but explaining this to people out with Scotland can be quite difficult. It's not just that we've got separate nations where England, Scotland, Wales, a bit of Ireland. But within those nations there are different sensibilities. People in Scotland mostly feel Scottish but some people feel British as well and some people feel only British and some people only Scottish. It's extremely complex. Lisa will be talking about Northern Ireland where it gets more complex again. And the idea of being British then is very different across different parts of the union. So when unionists talk about Britishness or Theresa May say the British people voted for Brexit, we say what is that supposed to mean? There are multiple ways of being British. It's not a single thing and unionists in recent years have said yes you can be Scottish and Welsh and all the rest of it but that Britishness is common and is the same everywhere. It's not the same everywhere. The diversity goes all the way down. A second element is about where we come from as a state or a union. It's about history and the future. It's about our historical trajectory. Are we agreed where we came from? I go around Europe talking about nationalism a lot and the first place you get to is history. I came back to Scotland at the time of devolution thinking as a political scientist I'd have a living to make out of this. Not at all. The people who are making the living were the historians. They're the people who are always the public intellect. Do we share a view of the past? Well Michael Gove, a Scotsman who is Minister of Education in England said all schools must teach the story of our island nation. You don't teach that in Scotland or in Northern Ireland. History has contested. That's okay. That's just the way the world is. Are we all agreed? Could we ever agree on the future? They talk about having a British Constitutional Convention. We'll all get together and find out where we agree on the future. We won't because some people want an independent Scotland. Some people want the union. People in Northern Ireland. Some people want Irish unity. Some want to stay with the UK. Others want other kinds of formulas. You don't need to agree on the teleology we call it, the purpose, the trajectory to be in a union. This is like the European Union. We have very, very different visions of what it should be. The third element is about what we believe about values or ethos. You hear a great deal about British values. The Unionists are always talking about British values. What are these British values? Democracy, fair play, the rule of law. Well yes, we do share these values right across these islands and most of Europe as well. They're not British values, they're universal values. So the notion that somehow these values tie the union together is at least questionable. Now these values are admirable. They're not actually challenged by nationalism or unionism. They will persist whatever happens to the union. So it's odd to say somehow, unless you're British, you don't believe in democracy and the rule of law or something. There's nothing whatever to do with these things as they come together. Yes, we all believe in these things. We can have a polity based upon, a union based upon, but don't tie them down to a particular concession of nationality. The final thing is about sovereignty. It's an abstract concept, but you hear a lot of that these days. Brexit was taking back to control, which means the British people, as Mrs May said, or the British Parliament, whatever, would take back control and be completely sovereign and not be subject to any external authority, or indeed any internal division of power. Since Brexit, Nicola, maybe we'll talk about this, we've had a lot of the reassertion of the Westminster authority. Yes, you can have your devolution, but up to a limit. When it comes to a conflict, we will always have the right word. That's not a union. That's a unitary state. Maybe decentralised, but it's a unitary. In a union, sovereignty is divided profoundly. The nations come together in different ways. They negotiate. You don't just get your own way by electing one government that holds all the cards. The union, then, is multiple things. There are multiple fibres that make up the texture of the union. They're woven together in complex ways. And unionism has worked historically in the United Kingdom, apart from a spectacular failure in Ireland in the early 20th century, but otherwise it's worked because it recognises the complexity of these relationships and it's not reduced to a single thing. In my book, which you kindly mentioned, I have the analogy of the human body, but I started off with a metaphor of the fourth road bridge. Apologies to anybody here who is a civil engineer, because it's just a metaphor. But a few years ago, there was an alarm in the press because they said the fourth road bridge is about to fall down. Because there are these cables and each consists of thousands of filaments woven together in complex ways. And they kept on breaking, ping, ping, ping, ping, all over the place. And people said, you know, a few months this thing's going to fall down. And it was pointed out, it will only fall down if all the filaments break in the same place at the same time. And that's not going to happen. It's weakening, of course. We may have to be careful what kind of traffic, but it's not just going to collapse. And the union is like that. It's like all these cables that are tied together in multiple different places. So if it fails one place, it'll be held together in other places. It's untidy, it's messy, that's how it works. But the danger to it will occur if unionists say, oh, there's only one filament or three or four filaments. Because if those break, then the union breaks. So it's all about British values and whatever Michael Gove thinks they are. And that is broken. You lose the union. So the union is complex, it's organic. Even if Scotland goes its own way and Ireland unifies, things will remain, some of these strands will remain together. And if unionists realise this, which they used to do, then the union will be in a much better state than it is. Hence, as I say, it's not the nationalist that are threatening the union, it's the unionists themselves. Wow. Thank you, Michael. Much food for thought there, Nicola. Do you want to go next? Sure. I think your question was about the state of the union. It's clearly not in a particularly healthy state, but nor is it necessarily doomed. I think there are particular pressures that have emerged over the last few years and the source of those, I think, is Brexit. And there are different dimensions of Brexit that have generated these pressures. One in Scotland and Northern Ireland, I'm going to let Lisa talk about Northern Ireland in particular, is the fact of Brexit. The fact that you had such a fundamental change to the UK's constitutional status, to its relationship with the European Union, with such a fragmentation of preferences across the different territories of the United Kingdom. So, in the Scottish context, that makes it relatively easy to present the case that Scotland's voice, Scotland's preference as a nation, was not recognised within the United Kingdom in the context of Brexit, and that's quite clearly been the case. The second element of Brexit is the process. So, during the Brexit process, lengthy process and ongoing process, Brexit is not done, the role of the devolved governments in that space was very minimal. The UK government of Mrs May and her successor, and doubtless his successor, was very much of the view that this was a matter for the UK government alone. And there were meetings that the devolved governments would be invited to, but they had no influence whatsoever on the Brexit process, the Brexit negotiations, their preferences may be articulated, but they had no influence at all. And there was something of a marginalisation of the devolved governments in that process. The third element is that Brexit has had implications for the UK's own system of domestic governance and has had challenges, certainly, for devolution. They're quite complex, the most controversial of which is a piece of legislation called the United Kingdom Internal Market Act. I won't go into the main details of it, but an element of it at least changes the way, potentially changes the way that devolution functions, and potentially changes the reach of laws passed in the Scottish Parliament and in the other legislatures across the UK. And that undermines the authority of the devolved institutions, and it does so because political autonomy, self-government, if you like, has been placed in a sort of beneath the value of free movement, free movement for business of removing barriers to trade and mobility within the UK, and that was a political judgment that the Conservative government made. But it has created challenges for devolution, and it was a piece of legislation that was affecting devolution in quite fundamental ways, but passed without the consent of any of the devolved legislatures and indeed in the face of their stiff opposition. So I think those are the three elements of Brexit that have created pressures on the union, the other element, and this is also in part linked to that same controversial piece of legislation, is that the UK government has developed a much more competitive approach to devolution, its way of strengthening the union appears to be to challenge devolution, to challenge the devolved governments, and in particular I think to challenge a nationalist government, and we've seen that in the context of the Conservative leadership contest, comments of the probable next Prime Minister to ignore the First Minister of Scotland is perhaps not conducive to a healthy working relationship between the leaders of these islands. But that competitive approach is linked to nation building and nation building is fine, strengthening the union deliberately having a strategy to try to strengthen the union is fine, but personally I think you're more likely to do that if you embrace devolution as a part of it rather than to fight and compete against it. And the final thing I would say and spent the last few years looking at intergovernmental relations, which is the flip side of the powers, the law making powers of the devolved legislatures, is how they engage with the UK government and with each other and how they manage the interdependence between the different powers. And intergovernmental relations in the UK is dire. The trust between the administrations is really, really low. Now they have negotiated new machinery, we'll see how that works, but the problem in sense is the culture that surrounds those relationships and the lack of trust between them. Michael used a body metaphor and a bridge metaphor. The metaphor that I've been playing around with is of the family. Partly coming from the use from politicians of the idea of the UK as a family, a family of nations. We've heard it again in the context of the leadership election. I've been asking in interviews with officials about whether it feels like a family when they are engaged. There are some feelings of a sense of connection, a sense of connectedness between the administrations. Sometimes they're working towards a common purpose in COVID, for example, we certainly saw that. A lot of pushback from the devolved governments unless you think, well, if it's a family like Dallas or Dynasty, that kind of family maybe then it works. Another official, I reckon I'll end on this, said, this is an official working in Scotland, said that in these intergovernmental meetings, sometimes he felt like the distant cousin that was at the family wedding who was there because he had had to be asked to be there, but was there on sufferance and that's what it felt like to be in that room. But what all of that tells us is that it's not really a productive relationship or as productive a relationship as it could be. And as Michael said too, my own view is that whatever the constitutional relationships between these islands, even if in the context of Irish unity or independence, there will have to be relationships and ways of working together to manage some of the problems and challenges that are purely by virtue of sharing these islands. Thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. So much in both what Michael and Nicola have said, but I want to come on to our family in Northern Ireland there. I'll let you say a few words, but I'd quite like if you could input on what kind of family member you think that would be quite good to keep those analogies coming. OK, thank you so much and thank you for the invitation to be here. It is one of the benefits of going after both such rich introductions to be able to kind of spin off. And if we're going to extend the analogy, I mean Northern Ireland has to be the problem child surely. And actually I do think that links into some of what Michael was laying out in terms of an understanding of the union and the plurinational quality of the UK union. I think quite often in history of the UK and the British state, Northern Ireland has been an exception, been treated as an exceptional place, but also in a sense has been something of an exception that kind of disproves or pulls at the rules or the norms, the understandings of what the place the UK is. And so the problem child I do think is fitting in some way because in that an exception that disproves the rules, it's like when you look at Northern Ireland you can see of course it's not a unified nation and of course there are dominant narratives about the British state and how it came to be. They don't often sit well in the Northern Irish context and therefore it gets kind of set aside and set apart. But to what extent are you talking about the state if you're setting apart a whole region of it? And I do think there's something quite can be fruitful in bringing back Northern Ireland into the conversation because it helps us to talk about the diversity that's inherent across the UK. Northern Ireland isn't quite as an exception, we all have problems of our own, we're maybe not the problem child but there's always been tensions and there's always been diversity. So that's the first point I would make about Northern Ireland being something of an exception that disproves the rules. And if we look at the contemporary picture, the idea of the four nations of the UK in itself I just think it's useful to highlight how inaccurate a description that is for Northern Ireland to discuss the UK as a state based of four nations to call Northern Ireland a nation is to fundamentally misunderstand the place and to ignore its history because it's a place defined by opposing nationalities, opposing identities and conflicting visions for the constitutional future of the place. So I get that that doesn't roll off the tongue and it doesn't fit well in a press briefing but allowing the complexity of Northern Irish history into the story, back into the story I do think is helpful to start talking about broader issues of the diversity of the UK history and different understandings, the multiplicity of identities and the complexity in the post-Brexit world of dealing with the new legislative functions that have returned from the EU which brings me to my second point in which is building more on what Nicola was saying around the post-Brexit context. I always remember back to article 50, remember back in the day 2017, article 50 was the article in the EU treaties that was triggered the formal process of the UK's withdrawal and that the relevant clause says any EU member state can decide to withdraw from the EU in accordance with its own constitutional requirements and I think that's just interesting because the UK constitution is uncodified, it's known for being unwritten but what that meant was pre-Brexit we could have different visions of what the constitution was and what it required sitting alongside each other without having to be defined or come into conflict but almost as we've undergone this process according to the UK's uncodified, unsettled constitutional requirements we have withdrawn done a process that no other member state had done before there's been a forced looking at those requirements and the ambiguities that were there have had to be dealt with and this is where the UK Internal Market Act comes in and the tensions, political tensions that existed pre-Brexit were given a new level of importance and immediacy and I do think that's part of the reason why to describe the state of the UK's union I mean it's ailing, it's not terminal but it's in a serious condition at the minute and then so if we have the process of Brexit has kind of exposed constitutional fault lines and tensions within the UK state Northern Ireland is the part of the UK as an exceptional place that's had the most contested constitutional history the most exceptional constitutional history it also has an exceptional land border with an EU member state so I'll try to finish on this because if I start down the path of Brexit in Northern Ireland you'll have to shut me up but I think one of the key changes in the post-Brexit context when we're discussing the nature of the UK state and the UK union is that Northern Ireland can no longer be treated as an exceptional place and kind of set apart as periphery although it has unique circumstances and unique government set up and the protocol in particular which we may discuss further recognises that but the new UK-EU relationship and the process that we've undergone means that Northern Ireland is now the touching point between the legal and regulatory order of the EU and the legal and regulatory order of the UK and that has a big significance and the architecture of the post-Brexit UK-EU relationship under the trade and cooperation agreement it sits over the top of that kind of hinge centre of the then diagram context which is all to say that when you then come back down to the constitutional tensions within Northern Ireland the fact that it's not a nation, it's defined by opposing constitutional identities and visions and aspirations the whole UK-EU relationship context now has at its centre a place that is fundamentally quite fragile and until we start to, until those involved, the UK in particular, the UK government and the EU really start to, I would suggest, change that approach away from the competitiveness and perhaps aggression that makes sense if you're looking between the UK and the EU but is not appropriate for dealing with a still, dealing with its post-conflict, still processing its peace fragile place that has always been complex and exceptional and now sits at the centre of two very big players in international relations I told you I could keep talking forever on that so I'll stop there I can see both Michael and Nicola scribbled badly a couple of things you said but I'm interested, I quite thinking pictures in my head so taking Michael's bridge and your word ailing I'm kind of thinking if we think of the old fourth bridge and the cables and then the number of things coming down, you mentioned the Internal Markets Act is that just one of the fibres on the bridge is the cost of living crisis and other fibres and are we at a point where you take an ailing and you treat it with aggression perhaps putting too many cars over the bridge are we pushing the union too far with the aggression and competitiveness you mentioned? Who wants to take that? Well yes and therefore you can model a scenario that the United Kingdom falls apart but it won't fall apart neatly on the lines of the constituent nations and it's just not Northern Ireland, it's not a neat unit Scotland isn't because 51% of people in Scotland vote for independence 49% will vote against and what does independence mean anyway? Nicola's point here, if we're still going to keep the green and possibly the pound and an open border there's no neat solution to it it's not like Norway at the early 20th century where 99% of people voted to become independent and clean break this is the modern complex state so it's easy to say my argument is the unionists have lost the argument but the nationalists have not won the argument by saying there's a clean neat alternative that could work either Nicola? Yeah it's interesting on the cost of living crisis I mean there's a couple of things one is that it's not so long ago that the Scottish Parliament renewed its settlement 2016 Scotland Act Wales had a new settlement 2017 as well still less powerful than the Scottish Parliament those of you who were here might remember that that came after the last independence referendum when the parties all got together it took them six weeks to hammer out a deal and then legislation was designed on the basis of that inter-party negotiation and it led to quite a significant increase in the powers and responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament especially over income tax but at the same time it exposed it to decisions over which it has no control and in some senses the cost of living crisis is not a policy decision although there are policy decisions related to it but these things will affect the responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament but they don't necessarily have the fiscal tools and other policy tools to address them so it's that the interdependence of the settlement still that is at issue and I think there are some difficulties with the settlement that we have here which has had a surprising if you negotiate it in six weeks that might need to be addressed at some point or that create challenges I think for any Scottish Government but at the same time the cost of living crisis isn't really a union issue it's not a constitutional issue and it's a problem that would face any administration under any constitutional scenario and we're not hearing yet either from leader of the opposition in Westminster or from devolved leaders a completely different way of responding to it and I think maybe there are challenges for all of them all of them there can be a bit tempting to sort of blame and say we can't do it because the levers are elsewhere but if you want to have an ambition of independence in particular what would you do if you did have the levers? I would want to hear that and think where is the vision for doing something differently to face that challenge and the other challenges that will be coming down the road I agree I would also say that I think there's a sense in which that architecture the post-Brexit context we haven't really seen how it works or doesn't work so the UK Internal Market Act sits alongside the common frameworks process that operates, Nicolae and I have talked about this at length they kind of operate under two different logics and visions for the operation of the state and legislative development UK Internal Market Act being quite a central, quite a very centralised vision where policy decisions made in Westminster really shape what can be done elsewhere the common frameworks process is different because it's at least in principle designed to facilitate agreements to disagree in how different policy areas are managed across the different jurisdictions of the UK and there is a possibility of interaction of kind of trade-off between those two and we've seen the first example of that through the exception the exclusion process being agreed for the use of single-use plastics under the UK Internal Market Act so Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland can opt out of a decision in respect of single-use plastics to introduce a ban against certain single-use plastic products but that's them opting out of what otherwise would have been set under the UK Internal Market Act logic if you follow and they're doing that through common frameworks which are provisions to agree to disagree I realise that's getting a bit niche but the kind of point is this is the first example that we've had not all common frameworks have yet even been finalised or agreed so that we're still really working out how the new systems work and how the political relationships are affected or facilitative of those different new processes I would then also just want to flag that I think one of the tensions that you might see in the union is reaching far out to the edges of the bridge is what's happening outside of the UK context so the prospect of divergence between in particular the UK market and the EU market because of the historic relationship there and the geographic proximity so decisions made at an EU level in terms of change of policy the extent to which they are or are not reflected at the UK level and what businesses think about that and who makes that decision whether there's agreement or disagreement about that all of that complexity we haven't really started to see what that looks like and how that plays into the politics of the UK and also the development and the operation of trading agreements we haven't really started to see that in a significant way and how they play down to the devolved level but they will have impact there and I would flag that I could go on to a whole other set for Ireland, Northern Ireland but perhaps we'll get on to that I think we'll open up to questions because I can tell there's a lot of questions in the room so I'll take two at a time if that's all right with the panel and we'll try and get through as many as we can there is a microphone coming round and if you want to say your name you're very welcome if you want to stay anonymous that's fine too and put up your hands nice and sharply so that the person with the microphone can see who wants to start us off the gentleman here in the yellow trousers and if there's a second one as well can we have that too? No, second one, okay hit sort of the question then please sir Hi, I'm David I'm French, we will hear that with my accent and I have a problem when you speak about like a family of nations I just find like the term not like quite accurate like if I think about like a family and like in a family like each person has a voice when like in the UK basically it's dominated by one nation like with the biggest population and for me what I don't really understand like the UK has a modern union it's like it's not one voice nation but the complexity is like England because of his population we always decide for the other nations and I think the main problem of the state of the UK union at the moment is that it's like if I'm Scottish, Welsh or from Northern Ireland I don't see how I have a voice and an impact on the UK policy because if we take Scotland like even if Scotland vote 100% for one party it will never change the UK decision on any matter and my question is like how do you see that in the future like should we change the constitution that we need a majority of the nations deciding on the policies of the UK or maybe we need to change the voting systems like how do you see like in the future how we can change this thing like that if I'm Scottish or Welsh I don't feel just dominated by England not as a powerful nation but just because the population is way different and makes sense that England will always have the last word Thank you and there's a second question to the man in the glasses first Thank you, hi Adam Locke and despite the accent which is obviously very painfully English Scotland is my country, Scotland is my home is where I plan to stay which informs the question because it could sound slightly dodgy without that context there's a fantastic book by a journalist called Gavin Esler in which he raises the question that unaddressed English nationalism is a core issue for the union survival he uses a whole range of examples so for example Jacob Rees-Mogg referring to Shakespeare as a British icon when of course Shakespeare predates Britain and in a modern example you can sort of look at Coulterman Minister Nadine Dorris saying we haven't had an event like the Birmingham Commonwealth Games since the Olympics when of course Glasgow held the Commonwealth Games after the Olympics there's a question here in which the idea of England and Britain culturally and politically are conflated by UK ministers and so I suppose it's largely a two point question the first one is would you agree with that point that unaddressed English nationalism wherein there is no English Parliament there is no English voice there is no recognised English entity separate from the UK Parliament to what extent is that a threat to the union and secondly if you do agree or disagree with that statement how would you remedy that and what do you think could be a solution to that to ensure that the UK if it should carry on does genuinely represent all four nations without this unaddressed English question taking over the issues of the union to a detriment of the English and the Scottish Welsh and in some ways most particularly of Northern Irish thank you Wow, two great questions to get started but they're not controversial ones at all Who wants to start us off discussing those? I'll have a go You're looking at me I mean I tying them both together I think I mean I think one thing I would want to say is that England is itself very diverse and so I'm always slightly concerned with sort of talking about England as if it is a single entity because I'm sure there are many people in different parts of England that feel dominated by decisions made elsewhere there is a problem of English governance England is perhaps the most centralised nation in Europe certainly in western Europe and that's a problem and it's not a problem with an easy answer certainly some of my colleagues have been looking at English attitudes for quite a long time and what comes across clearly from their data as well that there isn't a clear consensus on how England should be governed it's definitely not regionalism what comes across is people wanting an England-wide solution whether that's a parliament or something else as part of that but I do think the issue of English governance is part of and has to be part of finding new ways to govern the union but you're never going to get away from the fact that England is the dominant in population terms part of these islands it's just a fact and I think it does limit how far you can go in creating federal type solutions that may be seen as helping to address what might be a democratic deficit in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but at the same time generating perceptions of injustice or a democratic deficit within the largest nation if it seemed to be giving too much power to relatively small in population terms territories of the United Kingdom but federal countries do this and look at any federation you will see states or provinces or whatever they're called of very different sizes in California and Maine, let's see and there's an exception within a federal an acceptance within a federation that's part of the deal it's part of the way that you hold something together we don't have that federal mindset in the UK federalism is seen as a nasty word in certain political circles and it's not something that could be combined with parliamentary sovereignty which for some reason even though it's only a convention seems to have been given this sort of massive status within the UK's constitution so there will be proposals coming forward things like replacing the House of Lords with a chamber of the nations and regions that's probably quite a good thing I don't think it's going to resolve anything at all but unless you're willing to go down the road of fundamentally restructuring at the United Kingdom then I think these problems are ones that we have to learn to live with and that involves compromises in different in each of the parts of the United Kingdom in particular within the central institutions of power and I think quite tall has not really adapted to devolution it's not really adapted to the UK as a multi-level complex political system and I think there in lies many of the problems Can I just ask before you mentioned the attitude to federalism has that stayed consistent over time? Sorry So you said English attitudes to federalism have been the same? English attitudes to the way that England is governed so what seems to have been emerging from the data is that there is more of an awareness of England as England so that sort of historical thing of England and Britain just being conflated yes we might hear that sometimes in political discourse but actually there is increasing awareness of England as a distinctive nation within the United Kingdom and a sense of dissatisfaction with the way that England is governed and that appears to have motivated quite a bit of the Brexit vote within England and there is an irony that comes out of it too is that those in England who define themselves as British look more like in terms of their attitudes and values those who in Scotland and Wales define themselves as Scottish and Welsh So That's exciting Michael I can just take up from that point directly it's true that in the past there was a certain tendency of people in England to think they lived in a unitary state called England or Britain it doesn't matter which you use because they are the same thing infuriating to people outside England but actually that was one of the things that made the union work because they want to have their idea of the union and we want to have a different one it worked of course it was highly problematic because of the pressures in Scotland and then in Wales to gain more self-government within the union which went on for 100 years Northern Ireland is always an exceptional these points are absolutely right and by the time you're talking about the UK you can't leave Northern Ireland out if you're going to call it Great Britain then that's a different thing altogether so let's get the terminology right but now it doesn't do to say England stroke Britain because there is this English consciousness there is an English question we just don't know what the question is it's not the answer we're looking for it's the question we're looking for and then we can think about the answer because there are multiple things there and our colleague John Denham who's working with us on a project former minister is very articulate about this he said yes it's not an English parliament it's not devolution it's not something that would match Scotland and Wales but there is some kind of democratic deficit there that needs to be found and then we've been through the whole gamut of things because of regionalisation I'm old enough to remember regionalisation in the 60s and that went away again it was brought back under John Prescott it didn't work because of a referendum in the north east of England and then after that in the 70s they went for metropolitan governments Margaret Thatcher abolished them they've just been reinvented all over again there's constant churn of institutions because they can't seem to get it one is that departments in London just can't give way they just can't give up control another is that there's no institutional fix to any of these things these are deeper discontents another thing that's been coming up is the massive regional inequality in England we talk about the United Kingdom having the biggest spatial disparities in Europe England as a unit has the biggest spatial disparities as well and that's giving rise to a huge amount of discontent and then if we're looking at institutions the question is are we looking at the government of England in which case city regions or whatever might work or England as a component part of the union which is a completely different story and it's England about how you govern England that's their business that's not our business because we can't impose on them we would not like them imposing on us if it's England as a part of the union the implications that are so radical that you just hardly think about it because the English don't want federalism they would rather all the surveys show they would rather Scotland became independent than go for a federal UK which would restrict their ability to do things for England because that would be part of a federal system and then finally on Brexit one indicator of English nationalism that's really strong according to all the surveys is the connection between feeling English and not British and supporting Brexit so maybe Brexit will satisfy that English nationalism, that's an outlet for it but Brexit seems to be an ever-ending project now it will never be over it'll just go on forever and ever and that's one of the things that is connected in an extraordinary way with the notion of being English What a thought on forever and ever Lisa Just to build on that and it's perhaps quite a specific example that the British Irish Council is an interesting institution I think in the context of this conversation around the organisation of governance and really it gets to the point of the UK government in order to really reimagine the relationship between constituent parts and the way power is held has to give up what it has at present which is at times perfect so the British Irish Council was set up under the 1998 Elfascude Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland it's part of the Strand 3 it's a three-stranded agreement that deals with the East-West relationship and the British Irish Council includes representatives of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland the UK government the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and they come together once or twice a year to discuss shared issues and cooperative approaches to problems they can agree shared approaches in different settings different kind of groupings within the context but the point that I was going to make is that the heads of government of all parties come together except the UK government which is a Secretary of State a kind of more junior representative that's there the Prime Minister doesn't have to be there and so in a sense the vision is there but it doesn't have teeth as an institution there isn't voting power it is for discussion and cooperation but I think it's an interesting the way that it operates the indicator of that problem that exists notwithstanding the democratic deficit and the English question that also sits that was the one thing I was going to flag the other thing is just and this is perhaps somewhat anecdotal but I think there's a sense in which post Brexit context the UK is learning what the UK is in quite a real quite a present way three discussions around with officials around the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol quite controversial and the unique relationship that Northern Ireland now has to EU law there's been discussions back and forth between departments central UK departments and devolved Northern Ireland departments not knowing who specifically is responsible for implementing specific aspects of EU law and or UK law and its implementation because they haven't had to know before and so there is a sense in which in some of the politics of it and the big picture it does come down to complexity and the inherent complexity of running a multi-leveled state and so I was just going to make that point sometimes it's actually about not knowing rather than power grab sometimes next set of questions who wants to go next the gentleman here in the blue two different sides have we got two microphones or just the one just the one so if we do that question and then we'll move straight over to the other side just a couple of things the two current Tories that are obviously fighting for the next leadership of this country have both made it pretty clear that they're going to give the devolved countries a bit of a kicking and they're not happy with them and they're going to put them in their place so I don't know what the panel will think of that and the other thing that really and it's nothing new it's always struck me whether it be BBC news general media STV news ITV news Ireland seems to always get missed out the term Northern Ireland never comes into it when the news headline comes up it's always England, Scotland, Wales and I think sorry I'm missing something here but Northern Ireland does exist and they always seem to get missed out I don't know the reasoning behind that if we're all one, if we're all a union where the hell's Northern Ireland bearing in mind that a lot of people in Northern Ireland do actually like the union for some strange reason so am I missing something is it me or thank you I'm pleased to say Lisa's not been missed out tonight so we'll come to Lisa next but the gentleman just by the speaker there please hi thank you very much my name is Lukanyo I heard somebody there from New Zealand that I'm from South Africa so nationalism goes in many ways welcome from South Africa New Zealand I think we do much better in Iraq so I'm feeling competitive for the first time in a long time I was going to ask a question first for Michael I think it's actually been covered already what you said about the unions almost being the biggest enemies of the union and I think the gentleman asked a similar question based on what you've been hearing from the unionists fighting for the territorial leadership I mean it's any way they can turn that around or do you think it's invertible that it only goes one way based on the rhetoric that we're hearing but secondly what I just said is a question for Nicola because Nicola talked about the devolution issue and the way this viewed as someone's competition what I was also interested in terms of in terms of everyday life I suppose in like I'm interested in the role what do you think of the role of the Scottish office I mean it seems to be quite more active than I remember in terms of like a specific project in Scotland it takes pride in sort of finding things directly not going through the S&P government as I call it so in terms of the impact in that is it good for unionism does it win hearts and minds in Scotland or does it annoy people even more Thank you Lisa, do you want to kick us off on another line of question Thank you for the question I notice that too quite often I do think that there is a tendency to blind spot Northern Ireland quite often in discussions about policy and politics there's several reasons for that I would say again as we've discussed it tends to be different because of its different history because of the different governing setup there tends to be less data available so very often if you look at surveys that are being carried out on British for example the British social attitude survey is Great Britain not Northern Ireland so there is a kind of an inherent difference written in and part of that does go back to quite a long history Northern Ireland was the first experiment in devolution from 1920 up to 72 where there are bouts and so the organisation of the civil service has more of a legacy in Northern Ireland but it is also the case that politically the Conservatives Labour don't run that's apologies the Conservative Party do run they don't get seats so politically it's a different place as well and a different picture so to include Northern Ireland adds words to the article that's problematic I'm not excusing that but just recognising I think that's often a dynamic that plays in but again back to the kind of original point there is more complexity within the UK state broadly than is I think normally recognised and discussed and perhaps drawing out the differences and the Northern Irish exceptional quality allows us also to look at how there's diversity within England, there's differences so I think that conversation generally could be helpfully broadened including including Northern Ireland more on the unionism just to well perhaps actually I'll let Michael pick up on the or the others talk to the two candidates for Prime Minister I may say too much Michael Thanks Lisa Yes, I think your question as well was it about the leadership candidates every conservative leader since Edward Heath has discovered Scotland previous conservative leader had more instinctive understanding of Scotland Douglas Hume of Scottish Macmillan claimed that he was the grandson of a croft or he was a bit of a stretched argument he had this Scottish dimension to him and he went up to the grouse moors on the 12th of August every year you can laugh at that but he was a way of being Scottish and the conservatives have a very substantial presence on the ground in Scotland they weren't even called conservatives they were called the unionists of distinct party there was a distinct centre right party in Scotland that no longer is and so leaders then don't have an instinctive understanding Labour party is getting into that position now as well and people on the ground to tell them what to do in Scotland Conservatives have long had that and then they go through a process of learning with Heath he said let's have devolution run your own affairs and his own Scottish party said no way that collapsed and then Margaret Thatcher came in and there's a wonderful line a book by David Torrance I went about thatcherism in Scotland and Thatcher comes to Scotland and said you in Scotland the Secretary of State for Scotland you can't say you in Scotland it's as though you were in a foreign country okay so next time she said we in Scotland it's not that are they that's just it and then she gave a sermon on the mound in which she said Adam Smith was some kind of proto Thatcherite which is ludicrous anybody who knows about Smith so this desperately and John Major worried about it senselessly came up and agonised about the union and then Cameron thought that he'd solve it with a referendum so there's a history there neither of these candidates I can see has learnt Scotland yet or even made any effort to because the election campaign will be won and lost in England they will, whichever will discover I know Liz Cras spent a little bit of time in Paisley that was a long time ago she doesn't have that understanding of Scotland it seems to me what about the strategies well the strategies concerned the government have been pursuing is a mixture of no to referendum putting them in their place and love bombing which is the spending money I'm told constantly you talk to them oh do you know we spent money refurbishing Perth City Hall now why is that the business of anybody outside the city of Perth even in Edinburgh I don't know but that's it we're bringing goods and there's that big office down there where you wave early with the biggest union flag I've ever seen in my life looking over the ravine at St Andrew's house and this is supposed to represent where in government in Scotland or you could say it looks like the Governor General's residence you could read that different ways but somebody I don't know whether they deliberately had that symbolism but it could be it could go either way and similarly spending little bits of money and they got that from Canada because I was in the privy council office in Quebec a few years ago and they said we had these British civil servants came to talk with us and what we did after the Quebec referendum we put union maybe leaf flags all over the place a very similar thing this is a whole mixture of different strategies now what are they going to do about the constitution the Conservatives nothing I think at all and maybe they're right politically because conceding more powers has not affected support for independence at all maybe a big move on sovereignty because there are some Conservatives a very much minority are saying let's make a big offer on sovereignty let's say Westminster cannot legislate in devolved matters period there are some people saying that it would take a Conservative government to make that big leap of faith and just say do it it probably won't happen that's the question of sovereignty but other than that I can't see much thinking going on in Westminster finally on the question of Westminster the voice of the devolved in Westminster understanding of the devolved this is another of my little anecdotes but back in 1976 I was asked to teach a course on devolution in the civil service college and I taught it till 1979 went for reasons that those of us were old enough to remember no, it was closed down and when devolution actually happened we didn't have this at all but every few years I'm invited down Nicholas comes down as well we go down to talk about devolution and they give me a big line yard devolution matters and a big mug saying remember devolution and when I've done my lecture that you can keep the mug I said you keep the mug because this is not malevolence it's just forgetting about the devolves devolved and forget and I don't know whether in Scotland it's worse than they remember of us when they forget about us but there's just not that learning about we live in a federal kind of system here because it's so small concerned with the big preoccupations of white people that's really problematic and it can only be resolved by changing attitudes I think you can think around with the institutions but the attitudes really have to think and that federal conception of the system works is still very weakly embedded in Whitehall I should say some departments are better than others there's variation but generally speaking it's not been embedded in Whitehall thinking Just to pick up on that it's one of the things that's come through really clearly in the research I'm doing on intergovernmental relations is that a lot of the challenge for devolved governments trying to engage with the Yuki government is churn so Whitehall seems to have a difficulty in retaining staff so people go in they're very young, they spend a few years they move on and so they have to start again you feel like you're trying to get your counterparts to understand evolution and then they disappear and then you have to start all over again and of course that work should be done within Whitehall itself some souls do try but it's a constant challenge I think to get that embedded understanding of devolution I wanted to pick up on something Lisa said earlier about the whole sort of Brexit process and being a learning exercise in learning about what the UK is in all its complexity not seeing a whole lot of evidence of the learning in the context of the election contest that we are seeing and one can only hope that that is because they are competing for the votes and that in the office of Prime Minister maybe maybe there will be a different attitude and a different perspective who knows you were asking about the role of the Scotland office and you're right I agree with you I think it has changed it has become more active and actually it's no longer seems to call itself a Scotland office I think it's UK Government in Scotland or the office of the Secretary of State for Scotland too on the website but there's certainly a more active role and I will talk at length about UK Internal Market Act but an element of that act was spending power so through that legislation the UK Government gave itself the power to spend in devolved areas directly so by passing the normal routes of financing devolved matters going through the devolved governments so now they can go directly in a whole wave of devolved areas and as Michael said that was straight out of the Canadian playbook very controversial in countries where this is used a colleague of ours now passed away sadly used to call this boutique politics I don't think it's going to work I mean apart from anything else we're talking about quite small sums of money and there are you know you talked about Perth City Hall I can talk about a roundabout in Falkirk which was on the list of things that received levelling up now I live in Falkirk it will be very useful to have that change but will it make the people of Falkirk believe in the union more than they can play to you I very much doubted so if that is part of the rationale to strengthen the appeal and image of the United Kingdom in all parts of it by spending in these areas then I don't think it's going to make a whole lot of difference and if that was going to make more difference perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit If I may just quickly and you're absolutely right perhaps opportunity to learn might have been more accurate but just on that the question of boutique unionism and kind of unionist branding the ability to spend and this UK government does seem to be has very strongly emphasised to highlight how it's spending money and that sort of thing in the Northern Ireland context that in itself reveals just how tuned F the government are and the misunderstanding and there have been instances of for example in the post Brexit context wanting to all UK cars have GB stickers on them and ought to have If you live in West Belfast not London Dairy you do not want a GB sticker on your car and you won't buy a car and if the government is going to spend and it wants a union jack we are investing in this area again it's just it is kind of funny because it's so detached from reality but it's also real the tensions are high in Northern Ireland we don't have a government and some of the narratives really have been polarising existing minority communities or minorities the double minority communities so on one level it's kind of it's frustrating to watch and it can be a bit comic at times but it is also you have to be better there's an opportunity to learn and you have to be better that's my next set of questions there's two together at the back if we could take those in quick succession that would be marvellous I'm currently researching amongst pro-independence activists a kind of a sovereignty study and something I've I'm Dutch so something I've really noticed is that there's kind of a self-proclaimed civic nationalism nationalist really present themselves as civic and inclusive whereas at the same time I notice a very strong anti-England sentiment so I kind of wonder if you guys have any reflections on that kind of how both can coexist within the same discourse thank you and the question just behind thank you Esther Robertson here I was involved in the campaign to secure the parliament here as part of the constitution of convention and was always asked about the slippery slope to independence and I used to say no no no absolutely not we'll get our parliament and it's fine and I don't believe we need independence but if we decide we want it I'm a democrat and I'm no feared by the time we got to 2014 I was surprised to discover that I changed my mind only just and I voted yes in 2014 to independence if I hadn't I certainly would the next time because of Brexit and I've come to a view and I'd be curious to hear what the panel thinks because I've come to a view that especially because of the demographics my sons generation who are in their 20s the vast majority are in favour of independence I think Scotland will become an independent country question is when I suspect but I couldn't begin to form an informed opinion there is a possibility we'll see a united Ireland and we've now begun to see the campaign for independence in Wales albeit at a very low level but I have always taken the view that we will end up back at the table with England because we are islands and we will share those islands and they will still be our friends and neighbours and that what we're rejecting and I'm disappointed you're picking up that ethnic anti-English sentiment because I hope to move beyond that but I thought we were treating English as friends and neighbours and our rejection was of Westminster and the system not of the English so I'd be curious to know if we will decide to share things but we will decide what we're willing to share rather than be told Well, two more controversial questions who wants to go first, Michael? Can I take this civic nationalism thing because I have some responsibility for introducing this in the Scottish debate about 30 years ago this is a controversial notion about what you mean by ethnicity what you mean by nationalism what is the nation when I use that term in a book about Scotland, Wales and Catalonia what I was trying to point out is there are different ways of defining who belongs to the nation now, who is doing the defining the citizens, the political movements the official rhetoric whatever, these are all at various different levels but in the case of Scotland and Catalonia Quebec is more complicated there was a tendency for the national movement to try and embrace everybody resident on the territory because it's the only way they were going to win a majority and so in the case of Catalonia you're expected to learn Catalan but if you come from the rest of Spain it's not difficult, I've never learnt Catalan but I can understand it because I speak Spanish in the case of Scotland the cultural barriers are not that great because they are there but they're not there because there's no language question so that was, that's the project then you talk to Scots themselves about who counts as being Scottish and David McCrone and Frank Beckhoffer have worked on this for many many years and they say well people have different ways of being Scottish how inclusive is being Scottish for some people you have to have a Scottish parent for some people you have to be born in Scotland for some people you have to live in Scotland for some people it's just enough wishing to be Scottish and well I mean Rod Stewart or Alistair Campbell people like that living Scotland well why not, why not there are different ways you don't have to have rules about this and this is a complex but there's no one of those ones that Trump sent all the others so it's always a combination and that works, that's how it works and the other thing about Scotland is that the land boundary has not been changed since the 13th century and so it's easy to say look there's a land boundary, anybody within it which is the current voting system by the way you don't even have to be a citizen that's a civic notion but on the hand we know that there are instances of people who get prejudice and get silly ideas about people who are from England or elsewhere there's racism in Scotland absolutely futile to deny it so this is a very very complex question but nations are built in different ways and one of the things that Scotland can I think take some pride in is that most conceptions of who is Scottish are tend to be more inclusive than they are in many many other places I'll just put it like that Quebec similarly has been moving in that direction it used to be very strictly the Québécois de Souss the old Québécois and then it was actually the pro-independence movement who said no no we want to be more inclusive than that because otherwise we'll never get independence unless we convince the Anglophone to join our project and there's some evidence in Scotland it's actually the Nationalists who have a more extensive inclusive definition of who is Scottish than the Unionists do because they don't because if you've got a territorial criteria you don't need the ethnic one so that's the tendency and I don't want to exaggerate but in those movements I saw this construction of a civic nation but that's not ideal I didn't say everybody's exclusive and nobody's prejudice it's not true there are divisions so it's just about the nature of that project and we've got a lot of data now that seem to bear this out just on the support for independence I think it's important to acknowledge that Scotland is split and if you look at every opinion poll published this year the split is either 50-50 or a marginal majority against independence so we are very far from a settled will that was the phrase that was used ahead of the devolution referendum when there was a settled will a perceived settled will that there would be a Scottish parliament and I think for the independence movement I don't know the term nationalism I have no problem with it but some people do for the independence movement the challenge is to build support you mentioned young people it's quite clear the biggest difference in terms of support for independence is age in that those who are I think it's 55 and over are the ones who are quite clearly opposed to independence and the rest not but geography matters too and we talked about the geography of Brexit being a problem I think if there was to be an independence referendum you may find that there are significant parts of Scotland who feel that their voice is not reflected in a fundamental constitutional change so I think there are clear challenges for the independence movement if they want to build a sense of consensus for a significant change I agree with you that even under independence there would have to be ways to work together on these islands if you imagine Covid if Scotland were independent I expect there would have been the same meetings between the governments because some challenges whether it's Covid or a pandemic or climate change some challenges defy constitutional boundaries so there would have to be ways to work together but Brexit does complicate that the vision of independence that was presented in 2014 some people coined it independence light because there was this idea of continued shared governance in a whole range of ways some of that is much more problematic when the UK is outside of the European Union and assuming independence Scotland would seek to rejoin so there are definitely challenges there and I haven't seen any thinking on that yet in the papers that have been published by the Scottish Government so far but I suppose the biggest challenge is what is the path what would be the path to the independence referendum and if the Supreme Court says the referendum bill is either it says it now or further down the line says that it's beyond the powers of the Scottish Parliament what then and I think there is a challenge for the SNP in particular to try to say well winning an election, winning a Westminster election would be a mandate for negotiating independence no wouldn't one because you still have the same problem in terms of securing over 50% of the vote which may happen but is far less likely in the context of an election and two, negotiations require a willing partner so I don't see the scenario where a UK government that refused to grant the powers to have a referendum would suddenly say okay you one guy is north of the border in this UK wide election will accept that and come to the table I just don't see that being the case so there is a problem in terms of the pathway in the process of how you get to a referendum let alone how you get to independence but there is also a problem of the substance it's not an insurmountable problem the substance stuff about what independence would mean in the context of Brexit but it definitely creates new challenges not least around the border that would have to be addressed anything to add Lisa or shall I go to the next two questions I can address the Ireland quick unification question we are in the last 10 minutes 10 minutes on the issue at present try and suggest we haven't mentioned this much but in terms of the prospect of Irish unification try and say Northern Ireland suggest that there has been moderate the expectation that there will be unification in future has increased across all communities, unions, nationalists or neither the desire to vote in favour has slightly increased in the nationalists and neither groups has considerably increased in the nationalists neither slightly increased in unionists but as has the desire to vote against so it's a stronger trend in that direction but the expectation isn't that it will be soon for the process question is very important in terms of Irish unification and the realisation of that for those who pursue it because it all rests on a discretionary power held by the secretary of state for Northern Ireland and the criteria around which he or she could decide to hold a referendum is quite ambiguous it is that it appears to them that a majority would support would vote in favour of unification in Northern Ireland and there's lots of discussions around what that could look like and the different factors would be brought in electoral politics would be very likely considered and political polling this is why polling is so often carried out I think in Northern Ireland but also it would be a double vote so the Republic of Ireland Ireland would also hold a vote and there would have to be a double majority there and it's worth recognising in terms of the trends that are currently evidence in Fien are polling very strongly in Southern in Ireland in whatever your term of choice they have consistently been the largest party and if at the next election if that trend holds they could be returned for the first time as the largest party and end up as a party of government it's perhaps worth saying that their most prominent issue is not constitutional change it is cost of living change and civic nationalism is quite interesting in how Sinn Fein as a party on both sides of the border in Ireland perhaps a comparative case study are talking about inclusive vision of a changed Ireland in their language a new Ireland all of that is to say that the trends currently evident suggest that you could end up at a united Ireland in the future but nothing's inevitable and it's worth saying that a lot of those trends have been I think are better categorised as push rather than pull so the line between the impact of Brexit is very clear in the data as is the Sinn Fein rise is vis-à-vis the establishment parties that have been in and out of power for the whole time so that's lots more to say we've just got time for two more questions there are two rights at the front here please if we can take them short and in quick succession that would be marvellous and we can just squeeze them in so quick with the microphone this gentleman here and this lady over here that gentleman there thank you politics is a dynamic game dynamic business so again Nicola you're talking about maybe people in Scotland maybe a majority in Scotland voting for independence going forward or 53 53 seats to the SNP the next general election so therefore again it falls back on well what's democracy here or how do you define democracy or just because Westminster's going to control things that basically you're just going to be ignored then for the next ten years again no matter what you vote for thank you and then over to the lady in the green please this reverts to Michael's earlier remark about politicians not getting Scotland it's almost a one choice word is that obduracy arrogance or indifference to the civic voice and will that change come the difficult challenges of the cost of living increase and utilities cost increase thank you and so we'll add those two questions and because we're short on time I'll ask you to add any final thoughts you want to add in which order do we want to take them in shall I work in the opposite order to what we started with and go to Lisa first and then back and finish my job I think I have the least to say in response to those really accent questions is it obdurant do you want the final word while you think about it I apologise through what is democracy question I mean it is interesting because at the root of the word is the idea of a demos and the demos is a people but that's problematic in the UK context when you have complex multiple identities and if you think about the 18 years of conservative rule that preceded the devolution referendum there was this sense that democracy was not working for Scotland there was a sense that there was a deficit within the system and devolution was the means to try to address that I think if you had something persistently like that that could could I hate looking to the future I don't like looking to next week never mind thinking about a decade from now looking into the future no use of academics I don't react with the erogatory way there's boys like Jerry Hassan and Nadia Gunson and they produced a book where again Northern Ireland and Scotland are actually part of the EU if you look at the front cover things like that because then you're saying again you don't want to use names you're saying well poll show apart from the academic guy what's his name John Thomas where you can say well he's an academic he shouldn't be manipulating numbers or anything like that it should be he takes that from the social Scottish social if you look at what you've got in Scotland again the sample signs sample frame why we're selling that narrative is because you don't want change or there isn't going to be any change because you're manipulating the actual democracy or that democracy within the UK so I'm fairly confident that so the polling I was talking about all the different polling firms all using a variety of different sampling methods and I'm fairly confident that it's reasonably accurate to say that Scotland is split down the middle on the independence issue and today and has been for a wee bit except and this I'll end on this there was a period in was it 2020? 2020 what I can't remember but there was about a six month period when support for independence was consistently in the majority range from about 51 to I think it got up to 58 in one poll and it was consistent in different polling companies between about June and Christmas of that year precisely at the time when nobody was talking about independence and why was that I don't know for sure but I think it was because the Scottish Government was seen to be governing Covid well and so it's not for me to tell the Scottish Government what to do but if you are seen to be governing well I think you inspire confidence in the project of self-government whether that's the evolution or whether it's independence but then again I'm going to have to start you like we're massively running out of time and I don't want to hold everyone back Lisa any quick words Prohen to Michael to finish Just to perhaps say it's perhaps an uncomfortable reflection but I do think there is there's a sense in which you're always in the state that you're in and part of this conversation reminds me of conversations I've had in Northern Ireland with Unionist loyalist communities and actors who feel very strongly that they have been betrayed by the UK Government that they feel their British identity their Britishness very strongly and in explaining the realities of what has been decided on behalf of Northern Ireland and and been implemented there is a sense in which you have to operate the system that you exist under is the system until it changes which then comes to how do you change how do you get the UK Government to embrace change and transform it's always going to be iterative and to an extent I think and perhaps this is cynical and it's a personal view but it has to be to an extent in their interest to do so yeah yeah just picking up on this point there and about politicians' self-interest I think if you looking at the attitudes of UK politicians in England you've got to take into account public opinion in England itself and the extraordinary thing compared with Spain and Canada and other places I've looked at is how indifferent people in England are to Scottish independence Northern Ireland they'd rather have it go away just don't interfere with our affairs or our Parliament as they see Westminster and that's a powerful sentiment that you've got to work against on the other hand in fact the surveys about Brexit show that Brexit vote is in England would rather Scotland and Northern Ireland left if that was the way to achieve Brexit extraordinary figure on the other hand no Conservative leader could lose Scotland and survive so they're caught there they're caught between these two imperatives that are pushing in different directions I think that explains a lot of their tactics because they haven't got this deeper understanding of the union or at least they catch up with it too late and then they're out of office you've got one more word one more final thing I do think in all of that in terms of how that change comes in self-interest comes back to the point about the inevitability of the relationships between peoples and authorities of these islands so however it goes down in terms of power plays or the politics or the legality of where we are and where we're going as a state or as a reformed collection of policies we're always going to have to relate to each other so there's always going to be a cost benefit to how much trust or distrust how much agreement or disagreement is occurs in the processes that change or stability and then the aftermath of that in terms of how we relate together because we are geography bound us well a sentence to end on and if you would join me in thanking the panellists a few gychologies but I will be running by a couple of minutes but thank you everyone for your questions it's very much appreciated I think the only thing that is certain for me from this discussion is we have lots and lots of food for thought here but we've also got lots and lots of change no matter what happens because we know that some of the things that are going to happen no one is in control of I think the role of the pub in the Brexit vote is really interesting if you look at those communities we've got lots of things to think about going forward and some of them we've discussed today and no doubt we could come back again next year and do it all again and discuss different things hopefully we'll see you again soon thank you everybody