Only yesterday the choice was framed as between “soft” or “hard” Brexit — a close affiliation with the EU akin to that of, say, Norway, or a decisive, though still equable, break. That was yesterday. The shape of Britain’s future relationship with the EU has fallen since into the hands of the Conservative party’s English nationalists. Their preference is for a “granite” Brexit. And they will be happy enough if Britain tumbles out of Europe without any deal.
For Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, this represents force majeure. A Leave vote was always going to place serious strain on the UK’s four-nation union. Ms Sturgeon’s Scottish National party made a manifesto commitment to call a second independence referendum in the event of a “material” change in the constitutional arrangements. Brexit is certainly material. In thrall to the Tory right, Theresa May has made the collision certain.
Mrs May, I imagine, would not call herself an English nationalist. Nor does she lay claim to Margaret Thatcher’s free market fundamentalism. To the contrary, the tone she has tried to set for her premiership has been as a standard-bearer for a One Nation Conservatism that sides with society’s little platoons against rootless corporate elites, and allocates an important role for the state alongside that of the marketplace.