The disunited kingdom

Scotland's Chief Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the Edinburgh Parliament on January 19 RUSSELL CHEYNE / Reuters

Holyrood, the term by which the Scottish Home Rule is known, decided to keep the flag of the European Union hoisted when the rest of the United Kingdom - England, especially - celebrated the consummation of Brexit.

The Scots have developed in recent years a fondness for the common European project inversely proportional to the rise of English nationalism.

More than 60% of the citizens of this "nation" - the United Kingdom is defined as a sum of four nations - rejected leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum. And they felt the final result as a betrayal, because two years Earlier, in the consultation on independence authorized by the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, the main argument to defeat the separatist aspirations was precisely that an independent Scotland would automatically leave the EU.

Despite the implicitly assumed conviction, which never became a formal commitment, that the 2014 referendum would be valid for an entire generation, the Scottish National Party, at the head of the autonomous government, has kept alive the promise that citizens would have again, and soon, voice about his future.

The Brexit disaster - the complex negotiations, the political division of the country and the meager results achieved - has fueled the desire for independence.

Recent polls point to a majority supporting the idea of ​​an independent Scotland.

This is not the only rift in the British union that Boris Johnson must manage.

The final agreement with Brussels has left Northern Ireland within the Community internal market.

More and more away from London and closer to Dublin.

The politician who promised a vigorous and independent future for his country may go down in history as the one who caused the breakup of the United Kingdom.

The leader who rode the

European Union

campaign

now stands on the other side of the spiritual trench, defending a union, the British.

In different circumstances, Gibraltar too travels on a course that moves it away from London and closer to the EU.

Scotland's chief minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has promised a new referendum if her party, as polls suggest, wins the May regional elections.

Until now, it maintained that it would only hold that consultation through a legal channel agreed with the British Parliament, as happened in 2014. The SNP, however, has begun to feed the idea of ​​a non-binding unilateral consultation.

Legality, they argue, would come from the autonomous Parliament itself, not counting on London.

The aspirations of the Scottish pro-independence activists are understandable and legitimate.

The ways in which they will be pursued will also have to be.