THE Union of the United Kingdom is now at “real risk,” Lord Heseltine has warned, arguing that if the SNP lost a second independence referendum, it would swiftly begin the push for a third one.

In an exclusive interview with The Herald, the 87-year-old peer said the Nationalists’ desire to leave the UK but join the EU was “perverse” and if they ever succeeded in breaking up Britain, it would be an “historic tragedy” just like Brexit.

Lord Heseltine, who served as Deputy Prime Minister in John Major’s Government, famously clashed with Margaret Thatcher; his standing against her for the Conservative Party leadership in 1990 helped to secure her dramatic departure from Downing Street.

With 21 consecutive polls showing a pro-Yes lead, he was asked if the UK now faced an existential threat. “There must be and I deeply regret that.

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“The argument[on the Union] has been raging for some considerable time. My concern is the Union holds together…Just like Britain leaving the EU, Scotland leaving the UK would be an historic tragedy and I hope it doesn’t happen. I know what the polls are saying and it increases my concern and argues for a very determined argument the other way.”

The grandee insisted the Nationalist drive for independence was not unstoppable but, asked if the fate of the Union could be sealed in the next decade, admitted: “It’s a real risk.”

The prominent Remainer has, to put it mildly, had a rather uneasy relationship with Boris Johnson.

In 2016, in the aftermath of the Brexit vote and following the arch-Brexiteer’s dramatic withdrawal from the Tory leadership race to succeed David Cameron, Lord Heseltine likened him to “a general who marches his army to the sound of the guns and, the moment he sees the battleground, he abandons it”.

Asked if he thought the PM was a liability to the Unionist cause in Scotland, Lord Heseltine replied: “The cause of separatism is much older than Boris Johnson’s appearance on the scale and you’re not going to get me in a debate about the personalities. The Scots Nats will use any device they can to further their cause; that’s what politics is about.”

Indeed, the former DPM’s view is that the Nationalist position to want to be out of the UK but in the EU is illogical.

“It seems to me extraordinary the Scottish Nationalists, who want to break up the UK, want to remain within the EU; it’s completely inconsistent,” he declared, stressing: “Scotland will not be better off outside the United Kingdom any more than Britain will be better off outside the European Union.”

When the issue of Indyref2 was raised, the peer jumped in to insist he was against all referenda.

“They are nasty affairs because they are deeply divisive. They divide families, they divide communities…They rarely deal with the issues concerned.”

He accepted Brexit was a “stimulus to the break-up of the United Kingdom” but suggested the drive towards Scottish independence was “based much more on the consequences of the economic collapse of 2008 and the frustrations to people’s living standards that have taken place since then. That’s reflected in Scotland but it’s also reflected in the UK at large. People wanted change because of their frustrations over living standards and so, whatever change comes along, it’s so easy to turn into a false prospectus”.

When it was suggested Nicola Sturgeon had upped the stakes on Indyref2 and was pressing hard for another vote on Scotland’s future because she saw a window of political opportunity, Lord Heseltine noted: “Yes, she will and if she loses that, she will go for another one after that. The Scots Nats will go and on.”

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The peer said he “hoped” the Union could be saved and it was now incumbent upon the Johnson Government to present a strategy to push back the Nationalist offensive and argue the “self-evident” importance of maintaining the alliance that is the United Kingdom.

“They must explain the nature of the shrinking world in which we live. The emergence of giant forces beyond the control of the nation state. The inability of any smallish country to finance anything like the scale of influence they can have together. This is the European argument as well as the Union argument,” insisted the peer.

Lord Heseltine remains a non-affiliated peer after the Tory whip was suspended in 2019 because he announced he would be voting for the pro-Remain Liberal Democrats rather than the Conservatives in that year’s European Parliament elections.

He said he was “appalled” by Brexit and the recent trading problems had been “predicted”.

“The horticultural industry is in trouble, our exports with the hauliers are in trouble, Northern Ireland’s border is in trouble, the City of London has got no equivalence agreement. Amsterdam now becomes the principal stock-trading[centre]. It goes on day by day by day…

“We’re going through a period of adjustment but the new norm will not be as good as we enjoyed as members of the EU and every day the evidence accumulates as one predicted it would.”

Indeed, Lord Heseltine still keeps the flame alive for the UK one day becoming a member of the EU again and that day might not be too far away.

Dismissing any reversal of the 2016 vote through another referendum, he argued the Tories or Labour could put rejoining the bloc in a manifesto and win a general election.

But it was suggested neither of them were going to do that any time soon. “You’re talking about today. I’m talking about tomorrow,” declared the former Cabinet minister.

“Opinion would not need to change that dramatically would it? There was the narrowest of majorities in the referendum.” The UK result was 51.9% to Leave against 48.1% to Remain.

Asked if he was, therefore, relying on either of the main parties to change tack, he replied: “I’m relying on public opinion to change,” adding: “I believe we will rejoin the EU and I will continue to argue that we should.”