 Good afternoon all. My name is Dahio Kallig. I'm the chair of the UK group in the Institute and it's a great pleasure to welcome you here in person to this seminar on Scotland's constitutional future and the implications for Ireland and for Northern Ireland. We have a panel of five speakers. I'll introduce them as we go along. Four of them are present here and one is on Zoom. I should also add that there are over a hundred people on the Zoom platform today listening in which is very good and without further ado I'll introduce our first speaker who is Marie Black. She's an MP for a Scottish constituency for the Scottish National Party. She was the youngest when she was first elected to Parliament in 2015 and I think she's probably pretty much still the youngest and each speaker will have about seven minutes which altogether will add up to 35 but if I know my speakers it'll probably more likely be 45 and then we can go on with questions and a discussion until 10 past four. So Marie you're very welcome. Thank you very much. At first I thought you were going to say I was the MP for my sins but I'll take that. Also to surprise you I'll be surprised if I do talk for seven minutes because I always find with these events it's much better and more informative when people are allowed to ask questions and we can address the issues they don't want to. So first of all I would just want to say thank you for inviting me along here. Not least of all because it gets me out of Westminster for a day I'm always appreciative of that but more seriously there are of course constitutional discussions happening in Scotland and across the UK and in Ireland as well and of course as we know throughout our histories our shared histories what happens in one part of these aisles always has an impact on other parts of the aisles. Now for us in Scotland of course I am a member of the Scottish National Party I believe in Scottish independence I want to see it happen and I am absolutely certain that it is an inevitability that Scotland will be independent it's just a matter of when and how that happens and the reason that I want to see Scottish independence isn't for any romanticised reason or even emotive reason for me it's a completely logical thing I think that as in fact as we've lived through just in the last few years the world is unpredictable things can get flung out of nowhere that you did not expect to happen which is why it's so important that you get governance that you vote for and actually more importantly you can get rid of governance by voting and in Scotland that is not the situation that we are in and the frustration for me is we are always told that it's a union of equals that we are a family of nations and in 2014 when we had an independence referendum the one thing that Scotland was told was lead the UK don't leave us and what we've seen since then is almost every single scare story has come true I remember standing in doorsteps and saying well can you imagine what Britain could look like if we had Boris Johnson as prime minister dragging us out of Europe with Nigel Farage nipping at his heels and lo and behold it's happened and from that Brexit process an entire amount of ugliness I would say has been unleashed in the United Kingdom and not just in terms of culturally but when we look at the priorities of this UK government it scares me because we see a government clamping down on workers rights clamping down on the rights to protest insulating ourselves cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world and it's not a pleasant experience and I can say that as someone who works in the heart of Westminster it's definitely not a great experience so when we look over to Ireland from Scotland certainly it's with hope it's with an element of inspiration it's seeing the success stories that exist in Ireland even I think this year Ireland is seeing the the biggest growth in its economy out of all the countries in Europe compare that to the UK which is shrinking its economy and of course when you're coming out of things like Covid and in the middle of a cost of living crisis a shrinking economy is not good news for anybody when you then fling into the mix that we have a conservative government that seemed quite happy to play about with the peace process that's been implemented in Ireland who have been for years quite happy to challenge and have a question mark over what the reality of relationship will be between Northern Ireland and the Republic thankfully we seem to have come to a fairly sensible position but again from a Scottish perspective we're now looking at Northern Ireland having the very deal that we wanted and we're told that it wasn't possible so for me independence is about us stepping up to the rest of the world it's not about separating ourselves from other countries in Britain but rather sitting at the table with them as equals being able to hold equals sway as every other nation does and that's something that I definitely think we will see in my lifetime and if I can play a part in that I am more than happy to do so but thank you again for inviting me along here and I will answer your questions as best I can thank you much Barry we keep the questions done in the discussion until everybody has just said the introduction our next speaker is Mike Nesbitt he's an old friend he was a journalist for many many years before joining the Ulster Unionist party eventually becoming a the leader of the Ulster Unionist party Mike has always engaged across the spectrum in Northern Ireland and you've always engaged with the Republic Mike you're very welcome Kathy thank you very much and again thank you to the IEA for the invitation I think I feel at the hand of a mutual friend Terry Neil behind the invitation I fondly imagine I'm persuading you on the the committee let's get Nesbitt he's not very good but he's cheap so I'm kind of conflicted with my opening remarks because on the one hand I'm a unionist so self-evidently I am for preserving the United Kingdom with Great Britain and Northern Ireland and I'm not here to endorse the idea of Scottish independence but having said that I'm really uncomfortable with the kind of asymmetrical nature of devolution around the United Kingdom particularly as it applies to any protocols that are in place for votes on leaving the UK because we have plenty you don't have any actually so for example in 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement is explicit Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom unless or until a majority voting in a referendum opt for change but there's other parts that don't apply to Scotland and they're in the 1998 act which gives legal a legal enforcement of the agreement so in schedule one there are two things to bear in mind the first is that addresses the idea of a second or third or multiple referenda and it says explicitly that you can do that the only restriction is that there must be a gap of at least seven years between polls but given that the Scottish independence vote was 2014 you're well out of time you're two years over that limit but you don't have that facility given to you and the only other thing I would mention which again is in schedule one of the 1998 act is that you can't just call a referendum on your constitutional future willy nilly the Secretary of State has to be convinced that it is quote unquote likely that the majority voting would vote to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland so in terms of political consistency why would I not wish to confer the same rights to my colleagues in the Scottish Parliament because we don't have to once we start a water bowl we don't have to go back to Westminster to ask permission to do it again so in 2014 I was the leader of the Elsevier's party at the time the independence referendum and there was some interest in what position are you taking and my view was that whatever the outcome of the referendum that a recalibration of the politics the united kingdom was inevitable and to some extent that happened you had your Smith commission in Scotland we saw more of these elected executive mayors around the UK and we saw city deals and so the whole direction of travel for our politics was to get power out of the traditional seats of London Edinburgh Cardiff Belfast through councils in the communities because the whole lesson was if you want to affect positive change in people's lives get that informed decision making as close as you possibly can to the domestic unit whatever that domestic unit is so as an aside but maybe an important one you might question why it is that that hasn't happened in Belfast why all those powers we repatriated from Westminster in 1998 have largely been retained at Stormont and not rolled off the hill as I say towards the domestic unit and my answer is that for the last 16 years that's because the two parties leading our executive or not as the case may be our mirror images of each other in that they're both command and control parties who hold on to the power up at Parliament buildings and Stormont Castle so the the question that's being posed is what do I think the implications for Northern Ireland should Scotland leave the union and actually I think we're into kind of Donald Rumsfeld known unknowns here and the first thing I would want to know is if that were to happen what would be the strength of English nationalism at that time because I think it is one of the great ironies and for fans of four weddings in the funeral I do four ironies in the paradox which you might return to later but one of the ironies is for centuries literally for centuries I have looked over my shoulder my predecessors have Irish nationalists as the great threat to our place in the union today the Irish nationalists barely make the podium Scottish nationalists in in silver medal place but the gold medal holders at the moment are English nationalism and we're talking about people who weren't prepared to pay shall we say nine billion a year for membership of the single market access to that 500 million market so if Scotland were to leave I would fear there'd be a renewed focus for English nationalism on Northern Ireland and the fact that they're paying about 15 billion a year to keep us as members of the United Kingdom and the thought process there could very quickly go to well that's an acute new hospital in my constituency that's bobbies on my beat that's classroom assistance in our schools in our times and that's where I think the real danger is for Northern Ireland should we go down that route change though is inevitable and I think that's particularly difficult for for Ulster Unionists or Unionists in Northern Ireland because we are forever looking for the final agreed solution whether it's partition in the 20s or the Belfast Good Friday agreement in the 90s we're always trying to say right that is it that is the settled issue and and it's settled from here to the end of eternity and it's never ever ever going to be like that so I will finish with a thought which which may be controversial but I think what change is inevitable the least likely outcomes are the status quo and the traditional 32-county single sovereign state in other words we are not going back to 1801 but nor are we delivering in its entirety the vision of the 1916 proclamation thank you very much next we have and it's on the Zoom platform we have Professor Nicola McEwen who's the professor of public policy in the University of Glasgow and who's written widely on politics in Scotland professor you're very welcome thank you thank you so much and so sorry I wasn't able to be there with you today and hopefully my connection will survive this is a little bit glitchy I mean I thought I would maybe set out a little bit of context you will of course be very aware that there are ongoing challenges and issues for the independence movement and in particular for the SNP which makes independence perhaps look a little bit further off than it did a year ago for certainly an independence referendum not because support for independence has declined it hasn't but support for the SNP has and it remains the primary vehicle for independence within Scotland the primary vehicle but not the only one and I think critically that process where it's unfold would have to have the consent of the UK parliament at least to facilitate the referendum process we know that now and I think the next opportunity in a sense for anything like that to take shape would be the UK general election of next year and well we don't know how the chips will fall at that point that's still a long way off and I think whatever the constitutional status of Scotland within the UK or as an independent nation-state there will always be interdependence there will always be interdependence across these islands and I think there is an opportunity there for for Ireland if we do get to that point to shape and what that looks like and clearly there are challenges at the moment in the context of Brexit around managing and governing that interdependence but there is there's opportunities for things to evolve on all fronts and I think the relationships across these islands will inevitably be shaped by the UK's relationship with the European Union which itself will evolve over time so I agree that change is inevitable and that nothing stays still and there are no lines in the sand that won't erode over time but I don't see independence as inevitable I only look to Quebec as a potentially significant comparative example and it would be a mistake to assume that each new generation because the young are the most supportive of independence right now we shouldn't assume that the next generation of young people will be equally or even more enthusiastic in their support for independence change can go in different directions but for now all we can say is that independence remains an issue that divides Scotland it's not anywhere close to being what we used to talk about in terms of a Scottish parliament as the settles will of the people of Scotland and so I don't see it as inevitable but let's assume that at some point it happens and that it happens with consent as part of a legal and consensual process which I think is the only realistic way that it would happen what would that mean for Ireland north and south it's interesting I hadn't thought of the potential of English nationalism being a consequence of that I thought perhaps a more likely consequence and that was much more likely I think that you know that may well be likely but the one that had that came to my mind in terms of a consequence for Northern Ireland and indeed for Wales is that they become even more marginal in the minds of those who govern Westminster and Whitehall and without Scotland there then the evolution in a sense within the UK is is potentially diminished and easy to ignore and so you know that maybe may well be that it moves in other directions and we're politicised as well but what are the consequences for Ireland I think an independent Scotland would be looking to Ireland as an ally and both to shape the governing of these islands under new arrangements but also as an ally as it seeks to negotiate accession to the European Union it seeks to establish itself as a successful small independent nation-state and there would be opportunities where Ireland inclined to try to support that and form alliances there and of course once whatland is up and running as a new nation-state which would take time and there would be an ally there for Ireland too particularly within the European Union may also be a competitor so as another small English language advanced economy in Europe and in the European Union would there be competition there too and there may be national interests that don't always align and potentially would there be a knock-on effect for the unity debate within Ireland that's possible I would hope if there was it would be positive in the way that it could be done as with consensus and as a consensual process and one that I would hope would find ways to accommodate those who didn't want that outcome so to nurture losers' consent in other words and the final point is that there are opportunities for mutual learning now even before you get to to that point for the unity debate in terms of how you govern a diverse society and the different constitutional structures that may be that may be can evolve whether it's in the context of the UK whether it's in the context of of a united Ireland or indeed whether it's in the context of an independent Scotland which which itself would have to think about its own internal structures if it was to represent the diversity that Scotland features thank you thank you our next speaker is Graham Walker he's a professor emeritus of Queen's University Belfast and he's written extensively on Scotland on the relationship between Scotland and Northern Ireland and and Northern Unionism you're very welcome thanks very much and I too am very grateful for the for the invitation um back in the 1990s I published a book on Scotland's relationship with Northern Ireland and I called it Intimate Strangers now this title was deliberately chosen to try and capture something of the ambiguity in that relationship two places which were culturally very close a lot of shared history but in many ways political strangers um I think there were plenty of issues even then in the 1990s of a political kind which linked the two places but I think it's fair to say that they were they were not well appreciated they were rather obscured if you will nowadays I think that's very very different it's quite clear the political connections and interactions that they are um around devolution for example uh around identity questions maybe in particularly the question of British identity um around community divisions and sectarianism sectarianism something that was discussed exhaustively in the uh in the the last 20 years in Scotland um but most perturently I think around speculation and debate about the constitutional futures of both places namely of course whether Scotland should be independent or whether there should be Irish unity or whether the UK union will survive now if Scotland was independent would profoundly affect Northern Ireland um particularly the Unionist community there I think it would be hammer blow to them psychologically um the idea of breaking up the UK and leaving this rump UK which has already been mentioned uh in which they would be even more marginal than they are at the moment um just in passing I would say that if there was Irish unity that would have profound effects in Scotland as well and I'd like to say more of that later on but um to stick with the theme about the uh the impact of Scottish independence I don't think enough thought in Scotland has been given uh to the no-con effects of independence and breaking the union um in Scotland it's certainly among nationalists I would have to say that when when Ireland is raised the focus is almost exclusively on the south they take a detour around Northern Ireland it's too difficult um it raises too many questions which are very close to home in Scotland and they would rather not discuss them um and this I think was very uh clear back in 2014 in the independence referendum campaign then now I have to say that neither the yes side nor the no side actually considered Irish issues at all as far as I can see um the yes side certainly did not consider how a vote for independence would or might destabilise Northern Ireland affect the uneasy peace in Northern Ireland and let me say here that it's in very much in Scotland's interest that Northern Ireland is at peace and and then secondly those on the no side when they were pushing for more powers and so on for a Scottish parliament um as a way of persuading people not to vote for independence um they were not giving any consideration to the knock-on effects of that in terms of the devolution settlement the impact and perhaps in the Barnett formula and so on so if there is another independence referendum in Scotland very time soon I hope there is a proper Irish dimension now I could also say something about the lack of understanding here about Scottish issues but I'm too polite to do that um but what I would like to say is just touch on something that previous speakers have said about the the relationships across these islands I think this is fascinating um these relationships are messy uh they're often fractious they're always in transition but there is a lot there in terms of social and cultural interaction I think they're very rich in those things and they're very rich in potential for future cooperation and sharing and at this point I would throw out um a body I would mention a body which is really much neglected and that is the British Irish Council uh part of that strand three as you all know of the Good Friday Agreement um which now is a secretariat in Edinburgh although the Scottish government doesn't seem to be particularly interested um in it at all because given the secret secretariat in Edinburgh I think the Scottish government have got to be the driver of this body now this is a body which potentially could be used to smooth out a lot of these constitutional issues and tensions and so on and yet we hardly it flies under the radar we hardly take any notice of it so let me let me make a brief mention there of that that some 20 years ago um when relationships within these islands were discussed it there was a discourse around what might be called lives entwined in fact that was the the title of a couple of books of essays uh that were produced at that time looking at the inter-relationships um looking at the interactions looking at how uh these relationships might develop in the future and now thanks to the Scottish question thanks especially to Brexit and calamitous fallout from Brexit uh and to the protocol difficulties in Northern Ireland I think now we're talking about lives separated we're talking about positive interactions being disrupted and that to me is a great pity um Mari talked about the inevitability of Scottish independence I think we really need to be cautious about using words like inevitable when notions of being on the right side of history and so on these are very risky notions indeed and the SNP's recent troubles well who would have seen that coming not so long ago um so better nothing is certain but I do think that we can still uh produce a set of better relations between each other and bring out the best in each other now perhaps necessary to this um and here I declare an interest because I'm a Labour Party member um is a new government a Labour government at Westminster and it would actually be my preference that that Labour government isn't has not got an overall majority and would be dependent on the Liberals for support because the Liberals I think would push them in the direction of constitutional reform of granting PR at long last um of perhaps going down the road that Gordon Brown has recently sketched out in terms of a reformed United Kingdom um perhaps even leading in time to a federal United Kingdom and that's certainly something that I would welcome and what I think also unionists need to do uh and what they they have lamentably failed to do and Mike's an exception because Mike does try and engage with these things but too many don't certainly in the other unionist party we could talk about um is to engage with those plans for reforming the United Kingdom because it's eminently in the unionist interest in Northern Ireland that the United Kingdom should be reformed and they should wake up at long last to uh and realise that they are they do not have allies in the Conservative Party but thank you thank you very much Graham our final speaker is Paul Gillespie Paul's well known to this audience he's been engaged with this institute from the outset and has edited many books on the relationship between Britain and Ireland uh he's formally worked with the Irish Times and he's now very heavily involved in University College Dublin in looking at the the future constitutional arrangements within these islands Paul thank you very much and thanks for the opportunity to speak and uh I welcome this very much because it opens up the questions in as other speakers have said about uh the period of change we're living through uh the structural change in the UK and the way in which this affects Ireland and we need to think that through um uh we have stopped the uh trauma of Brexit uh as a drama part of that drama and it's necessary therefore for us looking from the Republic to be prudent and uh for researchers, policymakers, citizens uh to understand these changes and how they interlink with one another and to prepare for them uh as we like quite a way it's this is all a setting that's always changing but sometimes history speeds up and changes in very unexpected ways uh and in the work we've been doing in UCD we've been trying to get such a discussion going and contribute to it uh with the Millie Citizens' Assemblies on the possible shape of United Ireland uh they work with the Royal Irish Academy on North-South Relations which is really ongoing and very valuable a working group uh I was part of a working group from the University College London thinking about uh referendums North and Souths reported a couple of years ago and I'm now involved with indeed with Nicola McEwen and Michael Teeting as editors of a book uh which we are uh um it comes out of a project on Britishness, Irishness and institutional links and the title of the book we have is Conflicting Sovereignities Across Britain and Ireland Identities, Institutions and Futures and we've got a group of 20 or 21 British and Irish authors many academic authors mainly political scientists but historians and lawyers too uh looking at the interlink issues we've discussed paired British and Irish authors younger and older and well-established and less well-established scholarship and that's a contribution it's been good fun doing this and it really opens up many of the points that have been made already and uh we have a a Newman fellowship opening up in in UCD uh looking at where unionism is going both in in Britain and in Ireland and how that impacts on nationalism uh north and south now that structural tension in the UK what is driving us if we want to understand this we need to really concentrate here on how this affects the north and how it affects the republic and our research is identifying several major strands in this particularly after the brexit events the degree of divergence or convergence between British policymaking, UK policymaking and European policymaking is a very central issue and all of the dramas in the last seven years through the Tory party and Tory governments about that you know tells that story we're now at we've passed a moment of maximum divergence arguably and are heading back towards convergence uh but that really does make a difference we see the politics of the protocol and the and the and the and the framework in that but it also affects Scotland it affects Wales and it affects the very structure of the UK itself secondly the way in which the pattern of government in the UK is centralised centralised going way back in the way that Mike is identifying but also really is through the brexit process because competences governmental competences is brought back to to to to the UK where do they lie do they lie in the devolved authorities or do they lie in Westminster a lot of the drama about evolutionary politics since brexit in Scotland particularly has been playing out around those issues and how they justify the independence argument or not so so the case may be um now the um work we're doing on this identifies what this affects you on you know there's a what we call a neo-unionism which has to do with devolution and it opens up this huge question in the UK's governance of whether it is a unitary unitary unionism with a unitary state with absolute Westminster sovereignty that great formula or whether it's pluralist and understands that sovereignty must be shared and divided understands that nationalism interacts with one another and their inter-subjective understands that territory and territorial government has many functional aspects that that create interdependencies as we've been discussing and that those interdependencies will continue irrespective of the particular form the constitutional futures take and I'll go back to that point Scotland's role here is crucial um it's a laboratory of change uh it's towards if you look uh we've been drawing understanding those driving forces you we've brought them together into several scenarios of potential change one of them is a reformed renegotiated union of the kind perhaps that Graham was identifying another would be a breakup or a disintegration leading to breakup into four constituent units in between are related to those are what I call a differentiated union where you would have the Northern Ireland differentiation coming out of the protocol access to different of the two big markets applied also in Scotland and that's been a demand recurrent demand in Scotland it's unlikely in our analysis and of course the the old federal uh UK uh idea which is still there is an ideal it's elements of it in the brown and other plans but the question the big question there is whether that's the um political will to get there and that really big question is can the UK can it reform uh and go for that renegotiation or or count it how does it have the capacity to do that and uh it seems to to us in our analysis yes certainly a new deal is needed but there is coming through this history of the last seven years two additional elements uh to the relations the Brussels and the centralization what I call dysfunctionality as the effects of Brexit economically uh and politically and culturally you won't be able to log you and the effect of this prolonged uh agonizing about where they stand is simply becoming a much less effective union uh for people to want to be in whether in Scotland where the Northern Ireland already in England too and the second aspect is the loss of the old statecraft uh the chum theory of government that used to hold the UK together without it lots of the rules being written down so that it's collapsed so there's a deep requirement for change of the question is whether that can happen and the final remarks is these are problems just as much for unionists as for nationalists in Ireland uh whatever happens in Scotland what happens with the structure and change in the UK and we share this I need to talk about it much more that's why I welcome particularly Graham and his recent book uh on this uh to this uh discussion we need to do that preparation that analysis we need to think beyond or of the the alternative to or a formed UK is a transformed uh uh governance which would take probably that shape of of of independence all around but beyond that there is the continuing interdependency uh though that territorial interfunctionality that I referred to and that could take federal confederal lines uh between Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland that's a potential which we're exploring in our research and one way of describing that which is an interesting way to get a discussion going is that this might be a unionism beyond the union thank you thank you Paul um I want to thank all our speakers for more of us staying within the seven minutes you were very good all of you and you've been a that's been a very large a great deal of interesting material that we've just heard and if you have a question to ask just please say who you are and if you want to direct it to somebody uh direct it to somebody and I will also take questions of course from people who are online uh first Francis Jacob Francis Jacob's member of the Institute um I think a theme running through all all your uh talks is the only alternative to independence or unity is some kind of reformed United Kingdom how do you think that that can be achieved when as you pointed out England is so dominant I can't think of any federal system where one component is so dominant and is this the moment or is that make it even more impossible to start talking about having a written constitution for the United Kingdom I think that's really for the for the panel it's always going to be difficult very challenging um Gordon Brown's recent proposals included the reform of the House of Lords into an Assembly of the Nations and Regions um I think that that would be a very useful balancing act uh in terms of the the what what you rightly say is England's uh greater numbers greater needs and and so on and the other hand um I think might mention the city deals that are going on in England England's a bit of a patchwork at the moment in fact I really don't have a grasp of how these city deals are working I mean in Manchester for example Andy Burnham seems to be uh making great strides he seems to have quite significant powers he's got powers over health um things like that transport um in other places you know it's hardly noticeable you know what what powers are there so I would like to see this move to a situation where um powers and responsibilities are more clearly demarcated I think a written constitution is absolutely essential now um back in the 90s when all all this was being discussed there was uh two schools of thought one that kind of favoured a big bang and somehow doing this overnight uh the other one which was more gradualist and I think that's the more realistic one it's got to be more gradualist but I do think the centre of gravity in in UK or British politics is is left of centre I mean that is often concealed by conservatives being in office but I do think that if that left of centre uh centre of gravity can be established embedded down then I do think we can we can move to a reformed UK but I'm not underestimating the difficulties um so first of all I should say when I say that Scotland I think Scotland will it's inevitable that Scottish independence will happen it's precisely because of the point that you've raised now with the greatest of respect genuinely Scotland and certainly the Scottish people have been listening to both conservatives but predominantly the Labour Party promise and reform for over 100 years this has been on the table before whether it be the House of Lords whether it be proportional representation and it still just isn't happening so I don't see any evidence to suggest that this time it will be different and in reference to particularly Gordon Brown's paper I found a really interesting paper um and actually the first half of it for me partly made the case for independence because he talked about the decline of the UK whether it's economically or whether it's institutionally the Britain is not keeping up with the rest of the world and what we see happening is in I can't remember who sorry someone was talking about divergence and ultimately this is where I am for independence as opposed to devolution because I think if you have if even if you look at the the state of Britain just now you have in Scotland where election after election it is a centre-left party that is being endorsed we haven't voted conservatives since 1955 and yet the vast majority of governments have been conservative and what we've seen happen since devolution and since 1998 is that wherever we can whether it's SNP or the previous Labour and Lib Dem coalition we veered to the left as and when we could now the reality is even just politically and institutionally there's only so much divergence a solid unit can take and if you have two of the the largest parts of this United Kingdom constantly going in different directions and wanting different things and you have ultimately that English dominance winning time and time again it's not a sustainable process and that's why to me it is inevitable because ultimately what's either going to happen is devolution is going to be rolled back because I think in many respects Westminster's had a bit of a fright in seeing what has happened and we're already seeing that with things like the Internal Market Act attempts to circumvent devolution in the democratic process but also we we see this desire to keep a concentration of power so the choices are then do you keep giving more powers to the devolved assemblies if you're doing that then why not go the full way and when we're talking about things like the British Irish Council I see no reason why there wouldn't be constructive relationships between independent nations within the British Isles to me that's a much healthier position to be in apart from anything else so when I say that it's inevitable it's because to me logically all all routes end up there that either ends up that we lose the devolution that we've achieved or we go the full hold sorry I'll ask Mike first and then Nicola you're reminding me of an occasion when I was a very young reporter with the BBC going to Westminster and doing some interviews about the prospect of a Labour government when it was a conservative government in place at the time and I interviewed the late Tony Ben on the terrace and he said famously he kind of gave me a history of the Empire that collapsed the Empire and in his own words he said so Unionists should not be worrying about a Labour government if Unionists are going to get shafted it will be the Tories that'll do it and of course the Conservative Party is famous for you know they will do just about anything to preserve power or certainly to preserve the party so if we're going to make advances I think we need to have a really radical change of political culture so think back to 98 and the Belfast Agreement why did that happen because you had two leaders in John Hume and David Trimble who understood the concept of the greater good in other words the needs of the people came ahead of your party political interests the difficulty of course is over the last 25 years we have seen the impact of putting the people first on those two parties so it's hardly an incentive for anybody else to walk in their shoes but if we're genuine as I am and thinking the only way to really affect proper change is to get power and decision-making as close to family unit as you can then you have to do that but it's kind of intuitive are you mute Nicola oh hi sorry um yeah I mean I don't see I hate to say it's never for anything but I see very little prospect of Yuki becoming a federation not because of the size of England relative to the others because if you look around the world that's not that unusual California has a population of 40 million the smallest states in the US are half a million so the size disparity is not the issue the fact that you have one constituent territory um and three smaller ones I think that is that is an issue that makes it practically difficult but it's not impossible I think why I see very little prospect of it is I don't see anybody including the liberal Democrats pushing for this to happen in a way that would divide parliamentary sovereignty and create in a sense a rival power in terms of the the government and parliament of England and there's not really much in the way of thinking on how you would do that but it isn't impossible to devise a solution if the will was there I just don't see the will being there yeah I just want to say one thing on the the round commission proposals I mean I agree that I think Mary was making the point that the diagnosis of the problem in the sense is is one that many could agree with and and share and I think when it gets to some of the resolutions that's when the document gets a little bit sketchier and and leaves out some of the challenges associated with some of the proposals including the proposal for reform or replacing replacing the House of Lords with the Chamber of Nations and Regions which has been in labour manifestos for some time and this paper goes a little bit further but actually doesn't go all that far in terms of working out how you would do that and in particular how that would affect devolution and I actually see the potential if you were to do that in the way that was suggested in terms of electing a Chamber of Nations and Regions is probably potentially undermining devolution as much as it strengthens it because the relationship between it and the devolved institutions would be very unclear as the plans are laid out so far. Do you want to say something Paul? Following on that the diagnosis in that Brown commission is very solid really strong and particularly about centralisation the whole structure of government including the governance of England work again that I'm doing with Michael Keating and John Denham. John Denham is a former labour MP who's doing very interesting work on English identity and English structures come back and back to this and I think where each of us are sceptical in the way that Nicola is suggesting about the second half of those proposals and whether the will the capacity is there to do it given the countervailing forces the search for that majority whether I understand Graham's observations about but you know the desirable outcome with a with a liberal government because part of this of the necessary shift constitutionally is the electoral system in Britain towards PR and I just wonder whether the capacity is there and the will and if not my argument about dysfunction and statecraft come through strongly and may in a in a galloping way you know these lessons will be learned fast. I have a question which is really a follow on from the same question during the course of the Brexit negotiations the British government which was essentially an English government they effectively ignored the three devolved parliaments or assemblies you know there was a sort they they said they would establish arrangements at the beginning which would take account of what Scotland had to say or Northern Ireland had to say or Wales had to say but in effect during the course of the negotiations they didn't do so it was negotiated practically as an English government has this had any effect in Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland because if you look at what happened here the Irish government was able to look after its interests in a way that none of the devolved assemblies or parliaments were able to do and the only reason why the Irish government was able to do it was because we're an independent state. Is it okay for me to jump in now? I completely agree with you entirely there and I suppose one of the the things that I'm often asked or that gets thrown at me is you want to leave one union but you want to join another because of course we believe that in independent Scotland we would love to see it back within the EU and my answer to that is unions are not inherently bad they are not it's about how they are made up and how the power is shared amongst the different nations and whilst I always take the point you know that England does have a bigger population than the other countries within the the union but we are countries we're not regions and when you compare the United Kingdom set up with exactly what you just described there where Ireland was able to stand up for its own interests knowing that it had the backing of the rest of the the EU and having that ability to to veto things if it's not in your nation's interest that mechanism just does not exist in the UK and it has never been more starkly shown as it has through the Brexit process. Go ahead. It seems to me unionist problem is the messiness or the complexity of the union itself the union is a very complex construct there are so many interests in it there are so many variations there are so many different concepts of what the union should be this makes defending it very much more difficult than just taking a nationalist position to say that right Scottish independence that's the answer and untold benefits will flow and Irish unity that's the answer and then it's all wine and roses these are fast style kind of alternatives in my view I think there's virtue in grappling with the complexities let me put it that way I think that the union is worth preserving because simply and I'm really glad to hear Mari say that they you know nothing wrong intrinsically with unions shared sovereignty absolutely but I do wonder you know to what extent are the SNP or indeed Sinn Féin in that respect actually in spirit of the EU I know the mouth platitudes about being pro-EU and so on but really are they about sharing sovereignty I wonder to me it's an old-fashioned nation state kind of perspective I absolutely take the point about the calamity of Brexit the this muscular unionism which has emerged in its aftermath which is a disaster for unions if that prevails then the union doesn't really have a future as far as I'm concerned it can only go down the road that I've been suggesting however difficult and twisting how many twists and turns there are but I just say that you know it's you cannot kind of regard this as you know a neat division between defending the union in one hand and advocating national independence and Irish unity and the other you know the two different projects might you want to say I think yeah I think the kind of the kind of standard nationalist argument is why do you want to be part of the United Kingdom and have you know 18 MPs out of 650 whereas in in the kind of traditional United Ireland sense you'll represent a very significant minority of people on the island and potentially perpetually hold the balance of power and doil there and so do you really want Jeffrey Donaldson choosing your t-shirt every time you have an election that's a question maybe for for another day you know the way I see the future for us is unionists to a certain extent to to get over ourselves because Northern Ireland is only 1.9 million people and yes England is much bigger Europe is much bigger I think those unionists who supported Brexit made a huge strategic error because whatever Brexit was going to mean for GB or for England it was always shaping up to be a disaster for Northern Ireland and that has come back I think to bite us very hard why did they not realise that Europe has every right to protect the integrity of its single market but that as with rights you end up with attention because the UK has the right to decide how the four component parts trade internally and that is the tension with with the with the other with the other thing I would just like to see more cooperation because of Brexit and then because the institutions were dying that wasn't just storming that was the north side bodies which are really important now because given a Brexit which puts the government of Ireland on one side of the table the UK government on ourselves the other that's your only forum where you get together and mind yourself of our mutual interests of simple things like you're not going to build an acute hospital in Dundalk if you're building an acute hospital in Newark you know just sensible sensible cooperation and that of course applies to to our relationship with England Scotland and Wales as well but I think until the kind of majority of unionists admit to buyer's regret in terms of Brexit then then we're a little bit delusional we have created a bed that we don't want to lie in and we need to really sort that out but it's interesting Mike that uh the day before yesterday for I should admit that he may have made a mistake over here and then please Jane McCulloch from the Department of Foreign Affairs until recently I had the great fortune to be in Edinburgh as Ireland's Consul General where I knew Nicola very well so my question picks up on some points that I think have been touched on by all the panellists particularly regard to the difference between Scotland and Northern Ireland's constitutional legislative and practical places within the UK and the arrangements for them and how any of the panellists and I'm not sure everyone will give an opinion this but certainly Graham and Nicola I hope will how you might reflect on how the understanding of those differences have evolved through the Brexit process given at various times when different deals and under negotiation how there were calls for absolute mirroring of those between Northern Ireland and Scotland thank you thank you good I do thank Nicola sorry can you repeat a little bit of the question I was struggling to hear sorry Nicola I'll be brief this time how thinking has evolved in various circles in Scotland about the differences between the arrangements for Scotland within the union and Northern Ireland's position when we think back to the calls that were made over recent years for mirroring deals through Brexit for Scotland and Northern Ireland and what evolution we've seen I don't know if we've seen much evolution in terms of shared understanding and I think from a Scotland perspective I think there's probably a little bit of envy at the the arrangements that have been made from Northern Ireland but also sympathy with Northern Ireland's situation and I think there is recognition that you know obviously there is a difficult history and a desire on all sides whatever people well the most part whatever people stood on Brexit to to avoid difficult issues at the border but I think what is interesting is in particular since the Windsor framework is that I think that probably feeds into aspiration as well as to what could be possible in the context of Scotland being an independent member of the European Union because clearly Brexit and the TCA as it stands would create major major headaches for an independent Scotland with respect to the border the land border that it shares with England and I think the Windsor framework does open up some hope perhaps of ways that that might be navigated and the challenges associated with it managed more effectively than they might otherwise have been. The first thing I should say is of course Scotland and Ireland have a shared history shared culture however our recent histories and the intensity of conflict is of course incredibly different and I think it's absolutely right that the work did go into that maintaining that peace process and I'm very glad to see the Windsor framework in action but as Nicola says yes I'm jealous of it I'm incredibly jealous because again to go back to 2016 of course there wasn't a single council authority within Scotland that voted for Brexit it was across the board wanting to remain similar to a Northern Ireland majority voting to remain so why is it that they get a deal that Scotland specifically asked for now from my point of view I do believe an independent Scotland should be in the EU because I think it makes sense globally and I think not just economically but I think security wise it also makes sense but I'm okay to compromise because of course the part of our responsibility and being in government in Scotland is we have to respect where people are at and whether we like it or not people did vote to stay part of this union and it doesn't stop me continuing to argue for independence but we have to respect that and so long as we are part of this union we still have a duty to fight for the best possible deal for Scotland and that deal that compromised us was okay if you can't give us full EU access we'll take the single market then because it's key to us we also want to see freedom of movement continue because Scotland for all intents and purposes is to an extent empty we need people to come in we need immigrants to come in and give us their skills and give us their talents and they have enriched Scottish life so long as we were part of Europe but we've seen that now collapse so yes where there are of course intrinsic differences between Northern Ireland Scotland I do see no reason as to why we weren't given the same deal as they were and the cynic in me thinks it was because also one of the major scare or one of the arguments that is often made by Westminster is that Scotland goes independent there will be a hard border between Scotland and England which I genuinely do not think would be the case because it wouldn't be in England's interest either and of course this Windsor framework shows that it's perfectly possible to have separate to have a border that's not necessarily a hard border and for from a Westminster point of view I think they consider it political suicide to admit that to people in Scotland so for me the cynic in me thinks that's why we didn't get the deal that we asked for in Northern Ireland that all I think you head towards the Labour government which might push further convergence this side of re re entering the EU between London and Brussels in which case the border would get softer the potential border Scotland England the paradox of that is that actually might make independence more attractive to Scottish voters because they wouldn't have this big border problem to contend with so that this is very complex this is a complex set of issues the complex union but it has paradoxical outcomes the more you understand that complexity politically thank you we're very little time left again yeah sorry Catherine meaning member of the Institute I just want to go back to sort of the first wave of this discussion which is everybody knows exactly what they want everybody sees the barriers to achieving what they want and Paul particularly was making the point that enormous change will be necessary in the United Kingdom constitutional position but the big doubt is whether the capacity is there to deliver on it so is the sad conclusion not that things have to get an awful lot worse before they can get better person who'd like to take it upon anybody who wants to yeah I mean yes they're not just the Boris the Boris Tory type of problems just the incapacity to deal with these issues and we've used Gramsci in this this you know when the old count is dying and the new cannot be born you get a period of morbidity it's a very interesting way to understand the UK's problems and you know irrespective of whether we want to see that reformed UK or a transformed set of islands there's the central question that we're facing I know that the wash that post-Brexit a kind of the insularity particularly in England that English nationalism that has been mentioned I think that might but I think more and more people are waking up to these absurdities and you know I honestly think the worst of it's possibly passed in the sense that you know there's a kind of middle England opinion it's a rather sort of convenient phrase to use I know but I do think there is a awakening among those that perhaps voted Brexit for for quite they thought were quite sensible reasons not immigration for other reasons for for economic reasons perhaps and that's donning on them now that this is not happening and I do think there's a swing in opinion I think the Labour Party are actually sort of too far behind in a way they should be getting out in front of it and saying come on we're single market as Mary says it's absolutely the way to go if things have to get worse before they get better this will be my last appearance as an elected representative I think it's not a good but I am I'm actually optimistic for Northern Ireland because I think a lot of people are not just unions now I realize that the first thing you have to do is unite the people and make Northern Ireland work and that's measured by you know the public services it's it's measured by people waking up in the morning and getting out of bed because they've got something to do a job that they consider worthwhile having their children well educated having a health service that's there for them you know you can define that and actually even if you want constitutional change I think we're even those within Sinn Féin who traditionally unions look on and say well they don't want the country to work and look at their narrative Northern Ireland's a failed ungovernable statelet why are the dup playing that narrative it's another question by the way but anyway they now realized that flies against the first rule of marketing which is when you have a border pole whatever you're selling make it easy to buy now who wants to buy a failed ungovernable statelet so I think Sinn Féin even are realizing what we've got to do is make Northern Ireland work and there's there is no a sense for me and I'm being optimistic that there's a sense to common purpose beginning to emerge I'm an absolute cynic I wish I wasn't but truthfully the reason that I say that is because I would always favor a Labour Government over a Conservative one any day of the week but where I run into difficulty is that certainly in the present but also in the recent past I think that on the big issues Labour are relatively in the same position take the same positions as the Conservatives whether that be with Brexit or with immigration or with the direction of travel when it comes to fiscal policy austerity for instance and all of these things I truly believe and know just from working with my constituents Britain has become a worse place to be just now and not just in terms of the decline in standards of living but also in terms of the the toxicity of many debates and there has been real decline in the ability to debate particularly coming from where I work and so in a sense part of me thinks things might get worse presumably they will get worse if both major parties stay on the path that they're on my hope then is that that will nudge people towards demanding something better and which is I think what we have seen in Scotland since the implementation of the evolution has slowly been rising raising the confidence of people in Scotland being able to see in key areas oh we actually can do things slightly differently and slightly better and long may that last and continue and but I do fear that things will get much much worse and before they start getting better thank you I think we've come to the end I'm sorry we are not able to take all your questions both in the room and also on the on the on the zoom I'd like to thank our panel for a very stimulating and interesting discussion it's been very interesting indeed one issue that has not been mentioned if there are significant changes within the union is the question and we've seen it in the last few weeks of the crown thank you very much thank you