Abstract
The United Kingdom (UK) has experienced one secession event – the formation, in 1922, of the Irish Free State – and two others are in active contemplation: the prospect of Northern Ireland leaving the UK to become part of a united Ireland, and of Scotland becoming an independent state. Although each of these secession or putative secession processes has been handled very differently, this chapter argues that in constitutional terms the differences between them are less significant than they might appear. In the UK’s flexible constitutional order, the UK Parliament is free to redraw the boundaries of the state in whatever way it sees fit through the enactment of ordinary legislation. This means that there is no single legal pathway to secession, nor any particular set of terms on which it must take place. Thus, the key issue for secessionist movements is the political pressure that can brought to bear on the UK Parliament in order to secure its consent. This chapter examines each set of secession processes in turn, and ends by considering whether there is a case for more consistent legal recognition and regulation of secession rights.
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