The United Kingdom has never been
a single nation: no one ever speaks of
being a ‘Ukanian’. The UK is a messy
conglomerate formed out of the expan-
sionary appetite of successive English
monarchs and the resistance put up by
their neighbours. Although Wales had
succumbed by the 1530s, formal unionwas the result of a situation in which
England could not suppress Scotland or
Ireland, yet they in turn could not keep
it at bay. The catalyst in both cases was
England’s perennial warfare with France.
After the end of Roman rule in
the fifth century, the island of Britain
fragmented into a number of feuding
realms. Traditionally, the Scots and the
Picts are said to have been fused into
the kingdom of Scotland in 843, under
pressure from Viking invasions. But
maintaining independence was no easy
task. Norse control of Shetland and
Orkney lasted into the 15th centur y, and
Scottish monarchs had to fight a series
of brutal wars against England for some
250 years from 1296, during which
warlords such as William Wallace and
Robert Bruce became national icons.
Against the odds, Scotland secured itsScotland
How the strains of Brexit threaten
a centuries-old union
by David Reynolds
Johan Franzén is senior lecturer in Middle
East history at the University of East Angliabeing forcibly removed by the 2003 in-
vasion, the Kurds continued to develop
their own government institutions.
Following the war, the Kurdistan
region was officially recognised in Iraq’s
new constitution, and a Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) led by
Mulla Mustafa’s son, Masoud, was set
up. Yet, despite all vestiges of Saddam’s
regime being forcibly removed by an
American ‘de-Ba‘athification’ decree,
the relationship between the Kurds
and every post-invasion government,
formed by Shia political parties, has
continued to be troublesome. Out-
right war may have been avoided, but
disagreement on sharing of oil proceeds
continue to mar relations.Votes for independence
The Kurdish leadership, dominated
for over 70 years by the Barzanis
(Masoud’s nephew Nechirvan is now
president), has continued to push
for independence. In 2017, Masoud
Barzani called for an independence ref-
erendum, and one was held in Septem-
ber the same year; some 93% voted for
independence. The Iraqi government
rejected the legality of the referendum,
and tensions quickly led to armed
confrontation in Kirkuk, during which
government forces re-asserted author-
ity and took back territory that had
been captured by Kurdish Peshmerga
in the fight against the so-called Islam-
ic State over preceding years. Crucially,
this included the Kirkuk oilfields.
The Kurds soon discovered that
Turkey and Iran were intent on pre-
venting Kurdish independence at all
costs, and that even the United States,
whom the Kurdish leadership thought
of as an ally, would not intervene as
the Iraqi government crushed Kurdish
dreams of independence. Today, a
century after the idea of a Kurdish state
was first raised, Kurdish independence
seems as distant a reality as ever.GE Æ
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Double crown
King James VI of Scotland, who
became James I of England on the
death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603,
marking a ‘union of the crowns’