Yesterday I said the United Kingdom's days are done. Here's its replacement.

Yesterday I said the United Kingdom's days are done. Here's its replacement.

A Union of the Isles. England, Scotland, Wales and (the whole island of) Ireland, entering as four founding equals. The UK dissolves on day 1, because nobody is joining anybody else's country.

Now bring me your objections.

Don't want a King? Fine. Don't have one. The monarch is offered as a symbolic Head of the Union and imposed on nobody. Ireland can stay a republic. The Crown becomes each nation's business, not the price of entry.

Want to be in the EU? Don't? Fine. Hold a referendum, after implementation, carried only by a majority of people and nations. England can't drag anyone out. Ireland can't drag anyone in.

Done with the Barnett formula? Fine. Replace it. Joel Barnett called it unsustainable and an embarrassment, and has argued that it should be scrapped. When the man whose name is on it wants it gone, its days are done.

Money follows assessed need instead, calculated by the Union. Each nation raises most of what it spends.

Want investment to stop pooling where it already is? Fine. Need decides where the pot goes. Cost benefit analysis goes back to choosing between schemes once the pot is set, instead of deciding a poor place deserves less for being poor.

Want more autonomy? Fine. Health, education, welfare, tax, policing, justice, energy, planning, housing, broadcasting, language and agriculture all sit with the nations.

So what does the Union actually keep? Not much, and only what an open border makes impossible to split.

One customs frontier and one external tariff. Trade negotiation, because four nations can't sign deals changing what arrives at the same port. Common product standards, which is the whole reason the Irish Sea border stops existing. A common travel area, and with it one entry policy: visas, permits, who gets admitted, since anyone let in by one nation can travel freely to the other three. Common defence. The equalisation commission. A constitutional court to police the boundary.

Want the Union to be accountable? Fine. A President of the Union, directly elected, winning only on a majority overall plus at least a fifth of the vote in every one of the four nations, so English votes alone can't decide it. They appoint the executive. An Assembly of the Isles, also directly elected, confirms the President, votes the budget, ratifies treaties and can sack the executive. Defence, the border and trade sit under councils of the four national ministers, already answerable at home. Two chains, both short.

Want the right to walk away? Fine. Written in from day one.

Everyone concedes something. But everyone gets something they can't get any other way, certainly as things stand.

Let's solve this before it becomes a crisis, and spare everyone years of increasing acrimony.