As every politically attuned masochist knows, the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union — over the resounding objections of two of its constituent nations.

Scotland, still nominally a member of the increasingly Ruritanian island state, voted against Brexit to the tune of 62 percent. Northern Ireland, the only part of the United Kingdom to share a border with another EU nation, voted to remain by 56 percent.

The democratic deficit, a concept British unionists have tried fruitlessly to erase from the popular consciousness for decades, is once again unavoidable. And the chances of Irish unification and Scottish independence just got a whole lot better.