UK faces a question Ireland confronted 104 years ago, but with a modern twist

The leaders of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have signed a memorandum of understanding calling for constitutional change and warning that Westminster’s authority is weakening.

The pact does not begin the breakup of the United Kingdom. It has no legal force and does not change the UK’s borders, immigration laws or visa system.

But it raises a question that Ireland’s independence in 1922 did not have to answer in the same form: what happens to immigrants already living, working and studying in the UK if one country becomes several?


The issue matters because the UK now has a large population whose legal status is linked to one national immigration system.

In the year ending December 2025, 813,000 people moved to the UK for at least 12 months, according to provisional Office for National Statistics data. Non-EU nationals accounted for 627,000 of those arrivals.

India was the most common non-EU nationality among long-term arrivals. Study was the leading reason, accounting for 294,000 arrivals, while 146,000 people came for work. These figures cover new arrivals, not the total number of foreign nationals already living in the UK.

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A visa is not a passport

If Scotland or Wales eventually became independent, their governments would have to decide what happens to people who hold UK-issued immigration permission.

That could include people on Skilled Worker visas, student visas, family visas, asylum or humanitarian routes, as well as those with pre-settled status, settled status or indefinite leave to remain.

A valid UK visa currently gives a person permission to enter or remain in the UK. It would not automatically become a visa issued by an independent Scotland or Wales.

A separation agreement could allow existing visas and residence rights to continue for a fixed period. It could also protect people already living in the territory and give them automatic status or a simplified registration process.

But those protections would need to be written into legislation or a formal agreement. They would not follow automatically from the memorandum.

The question would also affect travellers. Flights and road journeys could continue during a transition, but people might eventually face new border checks, passport requirements or separate visa rules when travelling between England and an independent Scotland or Wales.

The people caught between new borders

The most complicated cases would involve people whose lives cross the UK’s existing internal borders.

A student could hold a UK visa but study in Scotland. A worker could live in Wales and work for an English company. A family could have members living in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Governments would need to decide whether such people could continue to live and work as before, whether employers would need new permissions and whether a visa issued by one successor country would be recognised by another.

The issue would not only affect new migrants. It could also affect people who had already spent years in the UK and had built their jobs, education and family lives around the country’s existing legal structure.

Scotland may need migrants even after independence

Immigration would also have an economic dimension, particularly for Scotland.

The Scottish Government says the country’s population is ageing and is expected to begin declining after the early 2030s. It says migration will become increasingly important to support Scotland’s workforce, economic growth and public services.

Scotland’s net migration reached about 56,400 in 2024. In the year to mid-2025, 50,200 people moved to Scotland from the rest of the UK, while 41,600 moved in the opposite direction, giving Scotland a net gain of 8,600.

That could create a tension for an independent Scotland. Its government might want greater control over immigration while also needing overseas workers to offset population decline and fill jobs.

Ireland offers lessons, but not a complete template

Ireland did not break up as a republic. Most of Ireland left the UK in 1922, when the Irish Free State was created, while Northern Ireland remained part of the UK.

That transition involved questions over borders, citizenship and movement. One lasting arrangement is the Common Travel Area between the UK and Ireland, which allows British and Irish citizens to move, live and work in either country.

However, the arrangement does not automatically extend to foreign nationals. A person from India, the United States or another country does not receive British or Irish residence rights simply by travelling between the two jurisdictions. Non-British and non-Irish citizens remain subject to immigration rules.

Ireland’s experience therefore offers a framework for managing movement, but not a complete answer for the modern UK.

The 1922 transition took place before digital visas, Skilled Worker permits, large-scale international student migration and modern permanent-residence systems existed. The UK would be dealing with a more complex immigration system and a much larger number of people whose legal status could be affected.

Three nations, three legal routes

Scotland cannot hold a legally binding independence referendum without Westminster’s approval. The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the union between Scotland and England is a matter reserved for the UK Parliament.

Wales has no automatic legal route to independence. It would need political agreement, a referendum process and legislation to implement any decision.

Northern Ireland has a separate mechanism under the Good Friday Agreement. A border poll must be called if the UK government believes a majority would support reunification with Ireland. A referendum would also be required in the Republic of Ireland.

If any of the three nations voted to leave, negotiations would then have to cover public debt, government assets, citizenship, pensions, borders, trade, defence and immigration.

The memorandum has not created an immigration crisis, and existing visas would not suddenly be cancelled. But it has put a modern administrative problem on the list of issues that any future breakup negotiations would have to solve: whether one UK immigration status can survive the creation of several countries.