Writing in The Times newspaper on 5 May The Rt Rev Dr Gregor Duncan, Bishop of Glasgow & Galloway says:
“If it had not been for the people of England and Wales, the UK would not be leaving the EU. That may seem an eccentric way of stating the outcome of the EU referendum, but it is rather more than that because it denies legitimacy to the oft-repeated claim that “the British people” voted to leave the EU with its corollary that the UK Government must implement their will come what may. They did not, the people of England and Wales did. The claim rests on the assumed identification of England and Wales with Britain, which identification, in our time of devolved governments and parliaments, surely cannot go unchallenged.
“The truth is that only two parts of the four-part UK voted to leave the EU, not a majority at all from that point of view. There was no provision that for such a momentous change to be undertaken, a majority would have to exist in each constituent part of the UK and so no recognition of the increasingly diverse nature of this obviously troubled land, troubled by the inability of its largest constituent, England, to acknowledge and live comfortably within an entity greater than itself.
“The truth also is that those who voted to remain have as much right to have their view remain part of national discourse as the so-called Brexiteers have the right to pursue their aspirations. As a direct consequence of side-stepping all of these truths and considerations, the whole Brexit project being so eagerly promoted by Her Majesty’s Government and now by means of an early General Election, puts the integrity of the UK as a state at very serious risk: Brexit may very well come to mean Break-up.
“For all their talk of stability and of “coming together”, Mrs May and her ill-fated predecessor, who have made no secret of their devotion to all parts of the UK, have already done much to undermine it by giving in to UKIP and certain elements in their own party, so much so as to put their commitment to any interest beyond that of their own party’s prospects of office in doubt among some voters. One result may be that many Scots, who voted ‘No’ in 2014 and ‘Remain’ more recently, and who have perhaps never voted SNP will in the coming months sadly find themselves pondering with increasing distaste and disbelief the future mapped out for them by Mrs May, yoked to a Tory-dominated austerity England, and so increasingly unable to resist the demand for independence and for the end of the UK as they have known, loved and valued it all of their lives.”
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