Does the UK face extinction? – Fintan O’Toole on the Union’s future

The UK is “muddling towards extinction”, says the Irish thinker and journalist Fintan O’Toole. Neglected by a Westminster political class that’s preoccupied by Brexit, the things that once held it together are disappearing. He tells Ros Taylor how England is embracing a nationalism it can’t articulate, why the SNP has failed to get what it wants, and why the UK is not the natural union that its supporters believe it to be.

• “The UK was not a natural occurrence.”
• “Englishness knows what it is not, but not what it is.”
• “With Brexit, this is always where it was going to end up — and no one in Britain cared.”
• “The English reluctantly accepted Scots, but only through an unequal relationship.”

Fintan O’Toole’s latest book is We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland since 1958.

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Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Audio production by Robin Leeburn. Assistant producer: Kasia Tomasiewicz. Lead Producer: Jacob Jarvis. Music: Kenny Dickinson. Group editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production

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