Election result will test British family

When it came to referendums – the issue that will define his 11-year tenure as Tory leader – he was sanguine about the UK’s decision to leave the EU. The vote had to happen and the people had decided.

He was much less relaxed about the 2014 Scottish referendum. As a Unionist, that vote – and winning it – was something which stirred him to the core.

Ironically, last week’s Conservative and Unionist Party victory in the general election may have settled the Brexit debate but it has also loosened the ties that bind the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Scotland went against the national mood, rejected the Get Brexit Done message and ploughed its own furrow. The Scottish National Party, looking explicitly for a mandate to leave the UK, was rewarded with 48 seats out of a possible 59.

It was not to the same degree but the shift away from unionism was clear too in Northern Ireland where, for the first time, nationalist reunification parties Sinn Fein and the SDLP had more electoral success than the Unionists.

With borders in the sea and some degree of customs arrangements between Belfast and the rest of the UK to come post-Brexit, there is a sense that established political and commercial relationships within the Union are shifting.

Guernsey will soon have its own constitutional questions to answer.

The end of Protocol 3, the legal niche within which the islands have nestled comfortably since 1972, and the new trading deal to be negotiated between the UK and the EU will need careful analysis.

There may well be areas where the islands end up feeling aggrieved, where they feel the UK has looked after its own interests more successfully than those of the Crown Dependencies.

The British family is going through a testing time. If one member can sue for divorce, so perhaps will others.

The two Bailiwicks must play a strong hand to ensure that their interests are protected. Unionist difficulties in Scotland and Northern Ireland may help that cause.