This panel brings together papers analysing territorial politics in the United Kingdom (UK) within the wider framework of the UACES-JMCT Research Network 'Reimagining Territorial Politics in Times of Crisis'. Over the last decade, and arguably before, the UK has faced numerous existental crises, calling into question ist very foundations. Ramifications from the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2016 Brexit vote and the Coronavirus pandemic continue to feature prominently in daily debate, with relations between the UK and devovled governments at the forefront of media and academic scrutiny.

With papers on each of the UK's constituent territories (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales), this panel looks at some of the ongoing issues and challenges driving and influencing the evolution of territorial politics in the UK.

Since their establishment, metro mayors have become an entrenched feature of devolved governance in England, gaining increased prominence during the Covid-19 crisis. The crisis raised the public profiles of metro mayors and highlighted the importance of effective central-local government relations, but public disagreements between the metro mayors and central government over lockdown rules and financial resources pointed to a distant and somewhat dysfunctional central-local relationship. In recent years, some attention has been paid to the importance of intergovernmental relations between the UK Government and devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but little attention has been paid to harnessing relations with England's metro mayors.

The paper is part of a wider study which has three main objectives:

1) to examine how IGR have developed between metro mayors and central government since 2017 (vertical interaction)

2) to examine if and how IGR have developed between the metro mayors (horizontal interaction)

3) to explore proposals to implement infrastructure to better facilitate IGR between the metro mayors and central

government

Drawing on interview data with metro mayors and other personnel within the combined authorities, this paper examines how relations between the metro mayors and central government have developed in recent years despite the absence of formal IGR structures, and whether and how metro mayors engage in cooperation at a mayor-to-mayor level.

Using qualitative data from the 2021 Scottish Election Study and the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly Election Study, this paper examines the reasons that citizens provide for their preference to either remain in or leave in the UK. Making use of qualitative responses to directly comparable questions, the paper analyses the prevalance of different types of argument within Unionist and Nationalist communities in Northern Ireland, and between respondents in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Arguments are categoried according to their core issue area, with six dominant arguments found in the data: 1) Economic Arguments, pertaining to the strength or weakness of the various constitutional outcomes; 2) Health Arguments, pertaining to arguments made about healthcare in the two contexts; 3) Identity and constitutional arguments, capturing those made on identity grounds (ie. I am British), historical grounds pertaining to independence and partition, and statement of constitutional preference; 4) Peace, Conflict, and Violence: the impact on political stability and the peace process; 5) EU/Brexit, capturing arguments which reference the European Union and/or Brexit as justification for the preferred constitutional outcome; and 6) Good Governance/Democracy, including democratic representation and quality of governance. The paper examines variation between respondents according to their demographic and political profile. The aim of the paper is to understand the stated motivation of nationalist and unionist voters across the two contexts, identifying areas of convergence, suggesting, perhaps, a common language of nationalism/unionism across the Irish Sea, and divergence.

Constitutional issues continue to divide sub-state territories across western Europe. While there is an extensive literature focused on support for independence in places like Scotland and Catalonia, comparatively few researchers explore why individuals may oppose independence claims within sub-state territories. While scholars discuss the different emotional and instrumental justifications given by pro-state elites, few studies examine the perceptions of citizens or how emotional and instrumental motivations may inter-relate at the popular level. We address this gap here, focusing on a sub-state territory whose constitutional future is being increasingly called into question: Wales. We use latent class analysis to separate individuals based on their responses to original survey items included in the 2021 Welsh Election Study. We introduce a novel categorisation of four distinct forms of unionism, which are separated along the centre-periphery cleavage and exhibit varying degrees of emotional and instrumental attachments to Britain. We find these unionists are also distinct in terms of their political party support and attitudes towards the Welsh language. Our analysis has important implications for those who research territorial politics, as well as for pro- and anti-independence actors across sub-state territories.

Northern Ireland is familiar with institutional instability. For roughly eleven of the twenty-five years since the ‘Belfast ‘Good Friday’ Agreement’ (1998 Agreement) was signed, the institutions of devolved government in Northern Ireland (for which it provided) have not been fully functioning. This level of instability is not conducive to good policy or effective public service delivery. It has, however, catalyzed creativity in UK government approaches to managing Northern Ireland during periods of stagnation, these are the focus of this analysis.

The paper begins with a descriptive overview of the stuttering, iterative development of post-Agreement government in Northern Ireland and the various UK government strategies (legislative and political) used to manage it. From here, drawing on broad concepts in political theory literature, the paper assesses the quality and legitimacy of those UK strategies against rubrics of democracy and accountability. In the concluding section, the paper discusses the applicability and significance of UK strategies in Northern Ireland in the wider context of UK intergovernmental relations, state structure and its international normative reputation.