The New York Times - 30.07.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTUESDAY, JULY 30, 2019 N A

LONDON — Prime Minister

Boris Johnson’s first appearance

in Scotland as Britain’s new leader

seemed to be going just fine on

Monday when he spoke from be-

hind the perimeter fence of a top

security naval base.

But when he braved the streets

of Edinburgh to meet with Scot-

land’s first minister at her resi-

dence, a crowd met him with a

chorus of jeers and boos.

He left by the back door.

If Mr. Johnson’s bumbling, up-

per-class persona goes down well

in many parts of England, it tends

to have the opposite effect in Scot-

land.

After all, in Mr. Johnson’s rush

to leave the European Union — he

has vowed a Brexit, deal or no

deal, by Oct. 31 — he has been ac-

cused of jeopardizing the much

older union that he leads: Eng-

land, Scotland, Northern Ireland

and Wales. Even before his trip to

Edinburgh, his adversaries

warned that he could become the

last prime minister of the United

Kingdom.

Nowhere have the warnings

been more loudly heard than in

Scotland, where a majority re-

jected leaving the European Un-

ion in 2016; where a movement for

Scottish independence from the

United Kingdom goes back dec-

ades; and where the first minister,

Nicola Sturgeon, has called for a

new referendum on leaving the

United Kingdom, and is waiting to

see whether Brexit brings that ob-

jective closer.

Mr. Johnson’s position is so un-

certain in Scotland that he cannot

even be sure of a meeting of minds

with Ruth Davidson, his own Con-

servative Party’s Scottish leader.

An abrupt rupture with the Eu-

ropean Union could also destabil-

ize the peace process in Northern

Ireland, and talk of it has even

stoked unfamiliar discussion

about a united Ireland.

“The union that is the United

Kingdom is in mortal danger —

more imperiled now than it has

ever been in its 312 years of exist-

ence,” Gordon Brown, the former

Labour prime minister and a

Scotsman, wrote in a recent arti-

cle.

On Monday, on a visit to the

Faslane naval base, Mr. Johnson

did his best to defuse that risk,

promising hundreds of millions of

pounds for Scotland, Wales and

Northern Ireland, and appealing

for a renewal of “the ties that bind

our United Kingdom.”

He also softened his tone over

Brexit after days of news reports

about ramped-up government

preparations for an exit without

an agreement.

When asked about statements

by his cabinet ally, Michael Gove,

that a “no-deal” departure was the

most likely outcome — comments

that prompted a fall in the value of

the pound sterling, which reached

a 28-month low Monday — Mr.

Johnson demurred.

“No, absolutely not,” he told re-

porters. “My assumption is that

we can get a new deal. We’re aim-

ing for a new deal.”

An economically damaging no-

deal Brexit, forced on Scotland by

the government in London, could

be a gift to those campaigning for

Scottish independence.

In Mr. Johnson, Scotland’s pro-

independence first minister, Ms.

Sturgeon, has something like a

perfect pantomime villain — a

walking, breathing (and often jok-

ing) reminder that decisions can

be imposed on Scots by members

of a remote elite, educated at ex-

pensive English schools and ex-

clusive universities.

So toxic was Mr. Johnson’s im-

age in Scotland that its Conserva-

tive lawmakers tried in vain to or-

chestrate a campaign to stop him

from becoming prime minister.

In Northern Ireland, most vot-

ers also opposed Brexit. The ef-

fects of a no-deal exit could be

more instant and dramatic there

because the border with Ireland

will be the United Kingdom’s only

land frontier with the European

Union.

If Britain leaves without an

agreement, that could force the

Irish government to introduce

border controls. It could also re-

verse progress made under a

Northern Ireland peace accord

that helped relations between the

divided communities by removing

symbols of statehood.

Given the impasse in the inter-

nal politics of Northern Ireland,

where the power sharing execu-

tive is suspended, London might

have to take over decision-making

directly, again stirring sectarian

sentiment.

On Monday, Michelle O’Neill,

the leader of the party Sinn Fein in

Northern Ireland, accused Mr.

Johnson of being “highly discour-

teous” by delaying his first con-

tact with Ireland’s prime minister,

Leo Varadkar.

Mr. Johnson is expected to visit

Northern Ireland soon, and also to

travel to Wales, where a majority

of voters sided with the English in

opting for Brexit.

But in Scotland Mr. Johnson

faces a double challenge. Ms.

Sturgeon, who argues that his

hard-line Brexit stance is driving

the country to “disaster,” wants to

keep close economic ties with the

European Union.

“The people of Scotland did not

vote for this Tory government,

they didn’t vote for this new prime

minister, they didn’t vote for

Brexit and they certainly didn’t

vote for a catastrophic no-deal

Brexit which Boris Johnson is

now planning for,” Ms. Sturgeon

said on Monday, before the meet-

ing where Mr. Johnson was booed

on arrival.

Yet there is also resistance from

Ms. Davidson, the leader of the

Scottish Conservatives under

whom the Tories have undergone

a revival.

Seen by the left of the Conserva-

tive Party as a potential future

leader, Ms. Davidson has champi-

oned a more inclusive brand of

conservatism. She opposed Brexit

in the referendum and remained

in the Scottish Parliament rather

than seeking a seat in Westmin-

ster, ruling out any party leader-

ship ambitions for the time being.

That has also made it impossi-

ble for Mr. Johnson to fire her, and

on Sunday she said plainly that

she could not support a no-deal

withdrawal.

“When I was debating against

the pro-Brexit side in 2016, I don’t

remember anybody saying we

should crash out of the E.U. with

no arrangements in place to help

maintain the vital trade that flows

uninterrupted between Britain

and the European Union,” Ms. Da-

vidson wrote in The Scottish Mail

on Sunday, a day before hosting

Mr. Johnson.

Tensions with Mr. Johnson have

been strained by his decision to

fire from his cabinet David

Mundell, the former secretary of

state for Scotland and an ally of

Ms. Davidson.

Among some in Scotland there

is a broader fear that Brexit has

radicalized the Tories so much

that their traditional commitment

to the union — the party’s official

title is the Conservative and Un-

ionist Party — is waning.

Critics contend that Mr. John-

son is pandering to a type of Eng-

lish nationalism that values sepa-

ration from the European Union

as a higher priority than Eng-

land’s ties to Scotland, Wales and

Northern Ireland.

Mr. Brown, the former prime

minister, pointed to a survey of

Conservative Party activists in

which “59 percent of its members

said they were prepared to sacri-

fice the Union with Northern Ire-

land to secure the Brexit they

want. Even more — 63 percent —

would sacrifice the union with

Scotland.”

However, others question

whether even a no-deal Brexit,

and the undoubted disruption it

would entail, would push Scots to

break up the United Kingdom.

A significant minority of Scot-

tish voters supported Brexit. And

a messy rupture with the Euro-

pean Union might remind Scots of

the big economic risk they would

take were they to break away

from the rest of the United King-

dom, their biggest market.

Scots would also have to con-

front tricky questions such as how

to manage their own currency and

whether to join the European Un-

ion’s common currency, the euro.

According to the British gov-

ernment, London would have to

agree to another Scottish inde-

pendence referendum for it to

have legal force.

One of Mr. Johnson’s arguments

against holding a second referen-

dum on Brexit is that it would set a

precedent for repeating plebi-

scites, and make it harder to resist

a redo of the 2014 Scottish inde-

pendence vote. Scots voted

against independence about 54

percent to 46 percent that year.

The Push for Brexit May Fracture British Unity

By STEPHEN CASTLE

Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, on Monday.

RUSSELL CHEYNE/REUTERS

Adversaries warn

a new leader could

be Britain’s last.

that much of the country lives in

poverty is often the target of offi-

cial ire.

Independent journalists, rights

advocates, opposition politicians,

government whistle-blowers and

others are smeared in the media,

jailed on dubious charges and, in

some cases, killed. Mr. Navalny

himself temporarily lost most of

the vision in one eye when some-

one threw a caustic liquid into his

face in 2017.

Sergei V. Skripal, a former Rus-

sian spy, was poisoned along with

his daughter in Salisbury, Eng-

land, last year with a potent nerve

agent administered by two offi-

cers from Russia’s military intelli-

gence, Britain said. Russia has de-

nied any involvement even

though surveillance cameras

caught the officers wandering

around Salisbury.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, another

opposition leader, has accused the

government of poisoning him

twice, sending him into a coma in

the latest attempt in 2017, al-

though medical tests conducted

abroad proved inconclusive.

Alexander V. Litvinenko, a for-

mer officer in the Russian security

service F.S.B. who became a Putin

opponent, died of polonium-

poisoning in London in 2006.

Boris Nemtsov, a prominent op-

position politician, was fatally

shot outside the Kremlin in Febru-

ary 2015. Although several people

from Chechnya were convicted in

the killing, neither the master-

mind nor a motive was ever iden-

tified.

Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer

and auditor, was jailed on tax eva-

sion charges while investigating a

$230 million government tax “re-

fund” that corrupt Russian offi-

cials had granted to themselves.

Denied essential medical care, he

died in 2009.

The journalist Anna

Politkovskaya, a critic of Mr. Putin

who wrote of atrocities by the

Russian military in Chechnya,

was shot to death in her Moscow

apartment in 2006.

And in a case dating back even

further, Yuri Shchekochikhin, a

Russian journalist and politician

famous for his corruption ex-

posés, fell ill and died suddenly in

2003. His death was attributed to a
      rare allergic reaction, but the case
      was never fully resolved publicly.
      Analysts have described both
      Mr. Navalny’s medical emergency
      and the mass detentions on Satur-
      day, when the police carted away
      almost 1,400 protesters, as possi-
      ble signs of the Kremlin’s unease
      about Mr. Putin’s continued drop
      in the polls, with Russians grum-
      bling about their stagnant in-
      comes. They said that instead of
      doing the hard work of changing
      policies to woo those who are an-
      gry with Kremlin, the government
      is trying to silence them.
      The immediate cause of the
      Moscow protests was anger over
      the Moscow City Electoral Com-
      mission’s preventing opposition
      candidates from registering for
      the September election for the 45-
      member City Council. Fifty-seven
      potential candidates were
      blocked, including about 17 gov-
      ernment critics.
      “There are thousands of Mus-
      covites behind every opposition
      member that was not allowed to
      run,” Nikolai Petrov, a Russian po-
      litical science professor at the
      Higher School of Economics in
      Moscow, wrote in the Vedomosti
      daily. “Today these are the people,
      and not just 17 unregistered candi-
      dates, who are in the position of
      being very harsh critics of the gov-
      ernment.”
      Hence the crackdown will feed
      more protests, he said, adding
      that “it is hard to imagine what
      they will do next, but it won’t be
      pleasant for the government.”
      The next Moscow protest is
      scheduled for Saturday.

MOSCOW — Russia’s most
prominent opposition figure,
Aleksei A. Navalny, raised ques-
tions on Monday about whether
he had been poisoned in prison af-
ter being convicted of calling for a
protest that led to one of the larg-
est street demonstrations in Mos-
cow in years.
Mr. Navalny, 43, was sent from
the government hospital where he
was being treated for an unknown
illness back to jail earlier in the
day. His return came over the ob-
jections of his doctor, who said
that the cause of his symptoms
had not been identified, but that
he had apparently been poisoned
with a “toxic agent.”
The opposition leader posted a
message on his official website
that addressed the possibility the
authorities had poisoned him.
Mr. Navalny wrote that on the
one hand, why would the authori-
ties poison him while in custody,
as they would be the obvious cul-
prits? On the other hand, he
noted, this had never stopped
them before.
“Are they such idiots as to poi-
son me in a spot where they would
be they only suspects?” he wrote,
before listing a string of incidents
involving opposition figures and
others where the government was

clearly to blame. “The dudes in
power in Russia are truly rather
moronic and asinine,” he wrote.
His doctor, Anastasy Vasilyeva,
said insufficient tests had been
conducted on the cause of Mr. Na-
valny’s condition to allow him re-
turn him to the place where, she
said, the toxic exposure probably
occurred. After being allowed to
see him, Dr. Vasilyeva wrote on
Facebook that Mr. Navalny was
feeling better but needed contin-
ued monitoring.
Mr. Navalny, the most high-pro-
file critic of President Vladimir V.
Putin and his government, was
rushed to the hospital on Sunday
from his jail cell, suffering from
swelling and hives. He was sen-
tenced last week to 30 days in jail
for organizing an illegal protest,
days before a demonstration he
had called drew thousands of peo-
ple in Moscow on Saturday.
Dr. Vasilyeva said on Sunday
that Mr. Navalny might have been
poisoned with an unknown chemi-
cal substance. The Interfax news
agency quoted a doctor at the gov-
ernment hospital where he was
admitted as saying that he had
suffered from an attack of hives,
but had improved.
In describing the events around
his hospitalization, Mr. Navalny
said on his website that his cell-
mates noticed on Saturday that
the skin on his neck was redden-
ing, and as the day progressed his
face, ears and neck began burning
and prickling. He could not sleep,
and by Sunday morning his head
was severely swollen, his eyes
were just slivers and his eyelids
were the size of “Ping-Pong balls.”
Mr. Navalny said he had never
experienced allergies to food or to
pollen, although he had previ-
ously had an occasional skin reac-
tion to toiletries, but not of the
kind in the cell. He said he had
been in the exact same bunk for 10
days just a few weeks ago, and af-
ter nine or 10 times in jail, he al-
ways brought his own sheets,
soap and toothpaste.
The opposition leader said he
started to improve after a doctor
gave him a shot, but he was not
told anything about his condition
and only discovered some details
from a hospital report given to a
news agency.
Unease among his fellow oppo-
sition members and supporters
stemmed from the Kremlin’s long
history of eliminating its oppo-
nents, often by poisoning them.
Mr. Putin has tried to build an
image of a powerful, united Rus-
sia, and anyone who would under-
mine that strength or point out

Putin Rival,

Back in Jail,

Addresses

His Illness

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

An unexplained case

of hives while in

custody in Moscow.

Aleksei A. Navalny on Mon-

day. His doctor said he was ex-

posed to a “toxic agent” in jail.

NAVALNY.COM, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mr. Navalny was released from a Moscow hospital on Monday,

after arriving the day before with facial swelling and hives.

MAXIM SHIPENKOV/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK