Photographer: WPA Pool / Getty Images
Photographer: WPA Pool / Getty Images
Boris Johnson went to Scotland to try to demonstrate the benefits of the UK he leads, as a powerful alliance of four nations working together to defeat the pandemic.
Instead, he was dragged deeper into an argument over whether Scotland should be allowed to hold another referendum on independence, just seven years after its last vote on the issue.
The British Prime Minister has rejected calls for a new vote and has insisted that even pro-independence activists, including Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon, agreed at the time that the 2014 plebiscite was a unique event. But he went further than before in discussing what any future referendum, including the future of the currency, should take into account.
“We don’t really know what this referendum would be intended to achieve,” Johnson said in a joint interview. “We don’t know what would happen to the army, we don’t know what would happen to the crown, the pound, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
Johnson’s most important point was that by working together, the four nations of the United Kingdom can pool resources and fight the pandemic.