Fragile UK unity must be maintained at time of crisis

IN COUNTRIES across the world, not least in Europe, the novel coronavirus crisis has not only hit at the heart of public health systems, but also laid bare festering domestic political divisions.

Before the pandemic struck the United Kingdom, for instance, tensions across the union were already high, especially with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon seeking consent for a second independence referendum for her nation. However, strains have only grown since. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was warned on Sunday that he is "fracturing national unity" further by disregarding the concerns, not just of the UK's home nations such as Scotland, but also English regions like the north, with his new "roadmap" for easing the lockdown.

Partisan differences aside, what the Labour Party's Manchester mayor Andy Burnham's critique of Mr Johnson underlines is how much the pandemic has exposed the fault lines in the UK's devolved political settlement of the last quarter of a century. Mr Johnson was charged last week by the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, that he has been reduced during the crisis to acting as the prime minister of England, rather than the wider United Kingdom, with policymakers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland rejecting key elements of his plan to lift the lockdown.