Brexit has shown the many weaknesses in the existing devolution settlement across the UK
It has frequently been suggested that Brexit is a problem whose roots lie in English nationalism. This is an argument that is well understood in Scotland. Brexit has sharply underlined the stark differences of politics and of public opinion in England and Wales on the one hand and Scotland and Northern Ireland on the other. Scotland is divided by its independence debate, but it was not riven over Brexit as England was.
In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, there is now more uncertainty both over what the future UK-EU relationship will look like and over what domestic policies the current Conservative government will focus on during the challenging economic times that lie ahead. These issues may sharpen the divide between a more Conservative England and more social-democratic Scotland, but the nature and depth of the COVID-19-related recession will pose challenging questions for the economics of independence.
Scotland, with its own parliament, its proportional representation voting system and its pro-EU majority, looks rather similar to other EU states of its population size – Ireland, Finland, Denmark and others. Whether Scotland will eventually become an independent state in the EU remains an open question. But Brexit has opened up a major political challenge for the UK as a state, leaving its politics fractured. Whether that fracture will finally lead to it breaking apart, time will tell.