Don’t mention Scottish play

Separated by more than 1,000 kilometres, the two Bailiwicks of the Channel Islands and the Shetlands and Orkney Islands would bookend the British Isles.

With the Isle of Man handily placed at the halfway point, meetings of the Grand Union of Crown Dependencies would boost the travel expenses budgets, if nothing else.

The leftfield notion that one or both of the Northern Isles might break away from the United Kingdom and forge a new, more independent, path modelled on the Channel Islands is probably not one to take too seriously.

When Holyrood and Westminster are united in purpose and hostility it is fair to say that the voices of a few isolated independents will have to shout very loudly to be heard, especially given the overwhelming Remain votes in the Scottish 2014 referendum from both archipelagos.

Rather than aiming for a split, it is more likely that the two Scottish councils are enjoying gaining some national attention and hoping in the process to persuade the Scottish National Party to loosen the spending reins and, ironically, devolve some real power.

Amusing though this spectacle might be for Guernsey and Jersey, there is a more serious side.

With Northern Ireland’s constitutional status and the Good Friday Agreement once again to the fore, any further talk of a break-up of the Union will play very badly in Number 10.

If the Conservative and Unionist Party is prepared to break international treaties to preserve its ties to one part of the United Kingdom it will not want to hear that the three Crown Dependencies have it so good.

Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man have an autonomy that looks very attractive in these increasingly devolved times.

The ability to make laws, raise taxes and carve out a profitable niche in the market enables the islands to move nimbly and avoid much of the cloying administration and cost that comes with a centralised government, whether that is in London, Edinburgh, Belfast or Cardiff.

As the Brexit ‘deal or no deal’ negotiations play out, the Crown Dependencies need to be seen as an integral part of Team GB, not as three sirens luring separatists onto the rocks.