Brexit has removed the EU as an external support system that prevented devolution from escalating and undermining the union. In this edited extract from his new book, State and Nation in the United Kingdom: The Fractured Union, Michael Keating (University of Aberdeen) warns that the Conservative Party’s vision of the UK as a ‘unitary state’ might fracture it even more.

The case for Brexit largely rested on the assumption that the United Kingdom is a unitary nation-state in which the people give effect to their will through a unitary and all-powerful Parliament. In this post, Michael Keating (University of Aberdeen) uncovers the shortcomings of such an approach and asks whether Brexit marks the end of the first of two unions?