The UK is hurtling towards a constitutional crisis

Last week’s election showed that the Union’s future will be decided by Scotland – either in the ballot box or the courts.

Last week’s local and national election results in the United Kingdom revealed a country radically, and perhaps irreparably, divided. Labour retained power in Wales; Boris Johnson’s Conservatives scored huge victories throughout England; and in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon’s pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) won a remarkable fourth term in office. Including the Scottish Greens, separatists once again command a majority of seats at Holyrood, Scotland’s devolved national legislature in Edinburgh. Both parties – the SNP and the Greens – support a new referendum on the break-up of Britain.