Former PM Major warns leaving EU could split up UK
SIR John Major has warned that the “agonies of Brexit” could break up Britain and lead to an independent Scotland.
Giving the inaugural lecture at the John Smith Centre for Public Service at Glasgow University, the former Prime Minister warned Tory rightwingers that they should not allow their obsession with leaving the European Union to blind them to the potential disappearance of a more historic union: the United Kingdom.
He said it was painful to come to terms with the possibility that, within his lifetime, he could see the break-up of the UK.
“I hope I am wrong but the agonies of Brexit have the capacity to do just that,” he warned.
“Some argue that a break-up won’t happen because economic logic is against it. But sentiment and emotion is a potent mix: economic logic was against Brexit, yet look where we are now.”
Sir John also claimed that, in the era of social media, populism and so-called fake news, a fundamental truth had been lost: that the vast majority of politicians were diligent public representatives who fought and voted for what their consciences believed and their philosophy dictated.
He recalled his political relationship with the late John Smith, saying: “John was a rare talent; the sort of tenacious politician that our country could ill afford to lose. If the fates had allowed, he would have been a prime minister of distinction.”
The former Conservative leader insisted he was proud to honour the legacy of a former Labour leader.
“John and I were political opponents but never personal ones. I admired his ability and conviction even when I disagreed with him,” he said. Sir John also bemoaned how Britain’s two main parties were being “manipulated by fringe opinion”.
“In Parliament, the European Research Group has become a party within a party with its own whips, its own funding and its own priorities,” he said. “Some of its more extreme members have little or no affinity to moderate, pragmatic and tolerant Conservatism.
“The ERG does not represent a majority view but... can determine policy simply by being intransigent; which is precisely what it is doing.”