The rise of Nigel Farage has prompted political leaders across Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to game the unthinkable: the breakup of the United Kingdom.
Unionists who wish to save the union and nationalists who wish to end it are bracing for constitutional turmoil if Reform UK emerges triumphant – with Farage as prime minister or official leader of the opposition – after the next election.
Representatives from each side believe a Farage-led government could trigger a hasty referendum on Irish unification and usher in Trump-style anti-immigration crackdowns that alienate the Celtic nations. The possibility of a strong Reform opposition or coalition spooks the nations just as much.
It is conceivable that “in just a handful of years’ time, people on the island of Ireland will be looking across the Irish Sea to a country where ICE-like snatch squads are arresting people off the streets” said Mark Drakeford, the former first minister of Wales, referring to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Drakeford, who has repeatedly said he would fight to retain the union, worries that politics in Britain has irrevocably changed and fears there “there may not be time” for a considered debate about the UK’s future if Farage reaches Downing Street or Reform significantly boosts its number of parliamentary seats from the eight it now holds.
“The United Kingdom is a voluntary association of four nations, and in any voluntary association there must be choices that people can make to stay in and choices that people can make to leave.”
The former Welsh Labour leader made the warnings last week at a conference in Belfast organised by the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP), during which figures from across the UK and Ireland voiced concern about the risk of being “bounced” into a vote on Irish unification.
Ireland’s justice minister, Jim O’Callaghan, said Dublin should begin preparing for unification rather than wait for English nationalism to set the timetable. “The future may not go down the predictable pathway of discussions and harmony,” he said.
Irish leaders think the UK’s annual subvention for Northern Ireland, estimated to range between £6bn and £20bn, could become a rallying cry for Farage, similar to the Brexit-era claim that the EU cost Britain £350m every week.
“Wait till he sees our bill,” said Claire Hanna, the SDLP leader. “I think if English nationalists really dive deep into the resources that Northern Ireland requires, that could become a political football, a political problem.”
“Brexit was a lesson in how not to do constitutional change, and since then British politics had changed in a structural way,” said Hanna. “We can no longer say the Nigel Farage phenomenon is a flash in the pan, unfortunately. It’s a feature now of UK politics. So it is prudent for us to think about our own constitutional future and not be passengers in wherever politics wishes to take us.”
Sinn Féin has campaigned for a unification referendum – which a British government can call at any time if it appears likely that a majority of people in Northern Ireland would vote for Irish unification – but wants consultation and preparation. “We can’t afford to take chances on what might come next from London,” said Conor Murphy, a former Stormont Sinn Féin finance minister at Stormont who is now an Irish senator.
Murphy estimates the subvention for Northern Ireland is lower than £6bn but said Farage could weaponise the £20bn estimate. “He could say: ‘We’re going to save that by letting the Irish go and good luck to you and goodbye.’ He could do that. I’m not suggesting that he will but it’s kind of the nature of their policies. It’s Trump-like. It’s unpredictable.”
Sinn Féin was urging Dublin to engage with UK counterparts – “while there might be someone sensible in Whitehall” – to clarify the terms and conditions of a referendum, said Murphy. “Establish the groundwork, establish the ground rules and make sure that they at least are insulated from whatever chaos might arise.”
Fine Gael, part of Ireland’s ruling coalition, recently said it would publish a blueprint for a unified Ireland at the party’s annual conference in November.
Leo Varadkar, a former taoiseach and Fine Gael leader, said he did not think a Farage-led government was likely but if it did come to pass, he believes Ireland could be “bounced” into a border poll. “An accelerator could be a UK government led by Reform that doubles down on Brexit, that takes this view that Brexit failed because it wasn’t done properly and looks for a harder separation from the EU and reopens these questions around the ECHR [European convention on human rights].”
Farage has said he wishes to leave the ECHR – and renegotiate the Good Friday agreement the convention underpins – in an attempt to stop small boat crossings to England.
In their 15th survey on the UK and the EU in Northern Ireland, the Queen’s University Belfast professors Katy Hayward and David Phinnemore found support for the removal of ECHR much higher in Northern Ireland (36%) than the wider UK (29%).
Indicating it is a new frontier for Brexiters, that support rises to 77% among Democratic Unionist party (DUP) voters and 93% with Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), with whom Farage had an electoral pact.
In a separate context, elements of loyalism found common cause with the English far right during race riots in Belfast last month.
Jon Burrows, the leader of Northern Ireland’s Ulster Unionist party (UUP), expressed concern that Farage’s brand of English nationalism “might galvanise” nationalism in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. “It could create more fertile ground for those who want to tear apart the United Kingdom.”
Unionists must promote the economic and national security advantages of the UK, he said. “I’m increasingly trying to get our message out about what Northern Ireland brings to the union.”
Control of seas and underwater cables were vital to the UK’s national security, he said. “I think behind the scenes the security services would be concerned about Northern Ireland leaving the UK. The island of Ireland would be a national security vulnerability.” Northern Ireland has 3% of the UK’s population but produces 10% of its food, said the UUP leader. “There’s so much that Northern Ireland is good at – we should be making that argument.”
Nationalists and unionists have contested Northern Ireland’s constitutional status since its foundation, but the question mark over other countries in the UK indicates this as a different moment in time.
Stephen Gethin, a Scottish National party MSP, told the conference that, while living in England, he was struck by the lack of engagement in the UK’s constitutional future. “How do we bring England and English people into this conversation? Because they’re an important part of our shared islands.”
Drakeford, who served as first minister in Cardiff until 2024, expressed hope the UK would endure and strengthen but said English nationalism risked pushing out Scotland and Northern Ireland, leaving Wales a “progressive pimple” in a rump UK.
Under that scenario, Wales could hope to associate with Ireland and Scotland in a new Celtic union modelled on the Nordic Council, he said. Even those who favoured the union should consider the possibility of breakup, he said. “We have to think ahead and prepare.”
Reform may not win over the majority of voters in the next general election in the UK – but it does not need to, said Drakeford. “The perversity of the first-past-the-post election system means that you can get a government, as we have now, with a big majority on 34% of the vote.”
In that scenario, he said, Wales might find the “United Kingdom has changed so radically that its component parts” may find “they will be better off elsewhere”. “From a Welsh point of view, this could lead to the worst of all possible outcomes – not one in which the people of Wales choose to leave the United Kingdom, but in which the United Kingdom has left Wales.”
