The Duran Podcast - UK Breakup on the Table; Merz CDU Collapse

Episode Date: September 19, 2026

UK Breakup on the Table; Merz CDU Collapse

All right, Alexander, last week we had a meeting in Wales between the first ministers of Scotland, of Wales and of Northern Ireland, and they signed some sort of declaration or document where they are saying that it's time to secede to get out of the United Kingdom. What is going on here? How serious is this? It's the first ministers? Yes. That's important, I imagine. But is this document? Does this carry weight? Is the UK, the parliament, are they going to look at this and are they going to be worried about what this means? Or are they just going to simply ignore this? Is this a media PR stunt from the first ministers? I think mostly it is at this time a media PR start. I mean, all three of these places, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have nationalist governments. Scotland is led by the SMP.

Wales is led by the Plaid CUMRI, which is the Welsh Nationalist Party, which also wants independence for Wales. and Northern Ireland, the government there is now led by Sinn Fég. So, you know, they're all nationalist parties. They're all very different. Each of these places is very different from each up, from the other. Northern Ireland, I am absolutely sure, as Donald Trump is, but I'm absolutely sure. Northern Ireland is going to become part of the Republic of Ireland relatively soon.

I've been saying this for some time now, but I'm convinced it's going to happen. I think the drift of events in that direction is irresistible. If we're talking about Northern Ireland, in some ways, the fact that it remained part of the United Kingdom when the rest of Ireland seceded in 1922, after a very bitter independence war, by the way, was always something of an anomaly.

It was basically the result of Britain's sense of obligation to the Protestants, the Protestant population who lived in Northern Ireland. And Britain's concern to retain control of certain very important military industries, shipyards and that were there in Northern Ireland. but with every year that passes, the importance of that diminishes and the sentiment in Northern Ireland gradually changes. And though, you know, we're not quite at that point yet, I think Northern Ireland definitely is going to lead the United Kingdom and is going to join Ireland.

And I think when that happens, people in England will take it in their stride. I don't think they think of Northern Ireland as fully part of the United Kingdom anyway. A hard thing to say, by the way, to some of the Protestant people in Northern Ireland, but that I think is the case. Scotland is some distance yet from that point, but it has over the last 20 years moved further in the direction of independence. Wales, I think, still has a long way to go. Wales has been joined to England much longer than Scotland has been.

Wales became under the English crown way back in the 14th century. So it's going to take a very long time for Wales to completely disengage from England. And there are still lots of people in Wales who will. oppose outright secession in my opinion. So even their sentiment is changing. So at the moment, I think it's mostly PR. I don't think we're going to have any immediate move in that direction. I think that London is going to oppose it. Andy Burnham has dithered over this issue, but I think overwhelmingly London is going to oppose it. And I don't think it's going to happen this year. year or next year. But things in Britain generally are getting worse. The economy is going down.

There is a rise in England itself of English nationalism, which is an underestimated factor in all this. You know, in a year's time, two years' time, we could have this conversation again, and I would give a different answer. I mean, it's an event that is now on the time horizon, even if it's not going to happen very soon. The weird part about the document that they put out there is that they talk about their intentions afterwards, once they leave the United Kingdom, to join the European Union. I mean, okay, Northern Ireland becoming part of Ireland would automatically put them into the European Union. but Scotland and Wales are talking about leaving the UK in order to gain sovereignty and then immediately losing that sovereignty to Ursula in Brussels.

Well, indeed, absolutely. What kind of warped, weird logic is that? Well, exactly. Why would you want to do that? This is where we come back to it. Better to remain independent if that's the case. Well, in absolute. You want your sovereignty, understood, so keep it. Yes.

Well, and this is where it becomes very interesting because, of course, Scotland in the Brexit referendum in 2016 voted remain, but Wales voted leave. So, you know, you can already begin to see the difference. Some areas of Wales voted leave by overwhelming margins. So people in Wales especially might say to themselves, well, if the choices between London and Brussels. We might as well stick with London. So what if the choice was independence, London or Brussels, what would the choice be? Well, I think there would be more support or support for independence in Wales than there would be joining the EU. I'm still not sure that it would be majority support, just to say. But it might come. I think joining the EU is,

is a all but impossible sale in Wales. And I think a commitment to join the EU from Plied Cirmary, which by the way has always been a pro-EU party. It's one of the factors that's worked against it, by the way, in Wales in the past. It's the reason, one of the reasons Plied Cirmary won the recent elections in Wales was because of the huge anger in Wales

against the Labour Party, which is previously, and historically dominated politics in Wales. I mean, when that happened when Plied Coomrie won the election in Wales, Kirstama was still Prime Minister, and there was, you know, the great anger against him and all of that. But I can easily see how, you know, if it seems to people in Wales that Plied Coomery is a pro-EU party, you know, people who up to then have said,

well, you know, let's think about this independence thing. Well, so no, no, no. Thank you, no. Brussels is not popular in Wales at this time. And Scotland? Scotland. If it was a choice between independence, sovereignty, UK or the EU, which one would? You know, this is, at the moment, as I said, in 2016, Scotland voted quite heavily for, quite heavily remain. but reform has been actually growing in Scotland.

So it may be that the mood there is shifting too. And I'm going to say to something else. The Scottish Nationalist Party is not particularly popular in Scotland. One of the reasons it still is the government in Scotland is because the Labour Party and the Conservative Party are now so on. unpopular, and then people said, well, if the choice has to be between the SMP and those two, we're going to stick with the SMP. But Scottish politics are more complicated than people think. I think that there is a gradual shift towards independence in Scotland. I think there is a gradual

increase in anti-EU sentiment in Scotland, too. I suspect that for the moment, pro-EU sentiment is stronger in Scotland than anti-EU sentiment for all sorts of historic reasons. I'm not going to discuss here. But anyway, I can imagine Scottish secession happening in the next few years more easily than I can imagine wealth secession. When that does happen, then there could be an interesting debate. about whether Scotland really does want to join the EU or whether it prefers to go the way of Norway and Iceland and remain outside.

By the way, Norway and Scotland have had very close historic connections with each other. So, you know, those three, Scotland, Norway and Iceland could potentially form an interesting group together if they all chose to stay outside the EU. But anyway, we will see. Oh, they would be better off. They would definitely be better. Sure.

They would definitely be better. All right, since we're talking about the EU very quickly, what's happening with MIRTS? Well, you see. You want some Ghana. I think they do, actually. I mean, we've now got getting more polling results from Mecklenburg for poor men, which is the state on the Baltic states in East Germany, where there are elections coming. The CDU has fallen to 7% there.

There is some concern. I don't quite believe this myself, but some are saying that it might fall below 5%, in which case it would not get a seat in the local parliament. I mean, that would be stunning for the core party of the German Federal Republic. I mean, it's almost unthinkable. But a 7% vote, or even one slightly higher, is still catastrophic.

And I think that the way Merz has behaved since the result in Saxon-Hul has really strengthened feelings about him. I mean, he's come across as very angry, very, very, you know, difficult. he's saying he's not going to shift his policies by one centimeter, even those policies that have made you the most unpopular, probably in German history. And the CDU, which has been pulled down by him, there have been many people within the CDU who've never been enthusiastic about him in the first place.

I think they're going to say to themselves, this man must go. So if the results in Mecklenburg for poor men are as bad as it's likely they're going to turn out to be, then I think there's a very good chance that Mauts will be gone within the next few weeks. And yes, it's complicated in theory to remove a chancellor in Germany. But the thing about politics is that what looks complicated suddenly when the, The need comes, the imperative happens, becomes very simple. Yeah, time for him to go.

All right. We'll end it there. We are on Substack. We are on locals, the durand.local.com, and also check us out at the Dorad shop. Pick up some great merch. Those links are in the description box down below. Take care.