Three signatures will not break up the United Kingdom, writes Gina Davidson

There is significance, of course, in that for the first time since the advent of devolution, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all governed by parties whose stated destination is independence or Irish unity. Either way, they want to break up the UK.

So there’s a lot of symbolism in John Swinney, Rhun ap Iorwerth and Michelle O’Neill getting together and making very public their intentions to act as a bloc against the UK Prime Minister and his government. And there was lots of grand language in Cardiff: Westminster’s time is coming to an end, constitutional change is coming, Andy Burnham will be the last PM of a United Kingdom, and the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have the right to decide their own future.

But those arguments, those political statements are not new. And while the optics look concerning for the PM, strip away the rhetoric, and all there is is a political agreement between party leaders who already agree on constitutional questions. That does not, by itself, trigger a referendum in Scotland or Wales or a border poll in Northern Ireland.

It sets no timetable, creates no new legal authority and cannot compel the UK Government - which controls the constitution, as the Supreme Court ruled just a few years ago much to the SNP’s grinding of teeth - to do anything.

No, the most tangible thing delivered today is coordination: a common political argument, a common demand, and a commitment to work together, be it on funding, energy or other devolved matters where they each feel they’re getting the short end of the wedge from Westminster.

And despite the agreement, they will leave Cardiff with different headaches when it comes to actually delivering on constitutional change.

Andy Burnham may well have given a chink of light to John Swinney when he said in the Commons that a second Scottish referendum could be held when there’s a majority of support for one - a big shift in rhetoric from the “nae chance” approach of previous PMs.

But independence support has bobbed and weaved between 40 per cent and 52 per cent this year alone, there is no settled majority for such an outcome. And in May’s election, while the SNP were returned as the biggest party in Holyrood, it was with six fewer MSPs. A long way from the majority that John Swinney said he needed to ask for a referendum. To top it all only 13 per cent of Scots ranked independence among their top three priorities, far behind the cost of living, the NHS and the economy.

Wales is an even more complicated proposition. Plaid Cymru is in less of a rush for a referendum, previously ruling one out for this parliament, and instead focusing on the devolution of more powers.

A sensible move perhaps given a recent poll put support for independence at 32 per cent, against 52 per cent opposed, with 16 per cent undecided. That is a substantial minority, and a striking change from where Welsh independence sat politically a decade ago, but it is hardly evidence of an imminent mandate for separation.

Northern Ireland is perhaps the most constitutionally consequential of the three, given it does have a clear legal route to securing a vote on reunification, as set out in the Good Friday Agreement. And of course we’ve had Donald Trump's extraordinary intervention in favour of Irish unity at the weekend.

However, recent polling puts support for a united Ireland at around 36 per cent, compared with 42 per cent for remaining in the UK, with a significant undecided bloc. Though other polling, including a March 2026 Amárach survey, produced a much more pro-unity result when respondents were specifically asked about a united Ireland within the EU, illustrating just how much the wording and circumstances matter.

So today’s summit is not the beginning of the end of the United Kingdom.

It is something more subtle: an attempt to make constitutional change a shared political project across these islands.

The challenge for Swinney, ap Iorwerth and O’Neill is the same one they have always faced. They can demand the right to choose. They can coordinate. They can build momentum.

But ultimately, they still have to persuade voters. And that is a rather harder job than signing your name to a memorandum.

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Gina Davidson is LBC's Scotland Political Editor.

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