As all eyes in British politics are on an empty Westminster parliament, the action is all taking place in Scotland.
The symbolism of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s visit to Balmoral yesterday to ask the Queen to suspend that parliament should not be missed. Balmoral, an estate purchased by Prince Albert in the 1850s, has long been a key structural element in the construction of Caledonian-British identity. Albert’s acquisition reasserted the idea that the British ruling class in Scotland, despite our Anglo accents and Anglican churches, is also Scottish, with all of the accompanying kilts and kitsch.
This merging of ruling-class Scottishness and Britishness has been a key part of the invention of the modern Scotland as a British country, and so one of the pillars of the United Kingdom. The fact that the prorogation, which makes the dissolution of that union more likely, took place in the building which epitomises it is at the very least an entertaining historical moment.
