Malcolm Petrie

Unacknowledged both by Leavers and Remainers, EU membership has served to disguise the messy contradictions of Britain’s multinational state. The uninhibited restoration of parliamentary sovereignty – in this context, the brute expression of English dominance – is no solution. In recent decades, the EU has helped to ease tensions at national borders as well as serving as a safety net for devolution. Some kind of substitute – or, more likely, an array of alternatives – will be required, if Brexit is not to bring about the disintegration of our anomalous early modern hodgepodge.