Devolution is making the United Kingdom chronically miserable

IN RECENT YEARS it has sometimes seemed as if the only question worth asking about the state of the United Kingdom is which of its four nations would be the first to break away. Northern Ireland, already carved off from the British internal market as the price of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal? Scotland, where the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is demanding a second independence referendum next year? Or perhaps even Wales, where polls find up to a third of voters would back a split?In fact, pessimism about the union’s survival is overdone. In Northern Ireland the Brexit protocol is leading to closer economic ties with the republic, but not a new wave of support for a . Any referendum in Scotland or Wales would require Mr Johnson’s permission, which he has made clear he will not give. None of the independence movements has gone beyond a back-of-the-envelope sketch of how their breakaway country would be run.