IN a trip billed as a “healing tour” by aides, the newly elected British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled Saturday to north England and promised a “wonderful adventure” was about to begin — once Brexit was settled. “We’re going to recover our national self-confidence, our mojo, our self-belief,” Johnson told an audience of prescreened supporters at a cricket club in Sedgefield. The constituency was once held by a former Labour prime minister, the centrist and close Bill Clinton ally, Tony Blair. It swung behind the Conservatives big time in Thursday’s general election — whose outcome handed Johnson a clear path to steer Britain out of the European Union. Yet even as Johnson leaned forward with promises of good times to come, many are wondering which of the United Kingdom’s four parts — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — Johnson was appealing to. In Northern Ireland, for the first time in its history, the region elected more nationalist lawmakers, who support unification with the Republic of Ireland, than unionists, who emphatically demand to remain a part of Britain. Ever since England and Wales voted in 2016 to leave the European Union, while Scotland and Northern Ireland did the exact opposite, the sides have worried or wondered when the union might crack up over Brexit. In England, Johnson’s Conservatives won new seats across the opposition Labour Party’s former working-class heartlands, giving his party its largest parliamentary majority since Margaret Thatcher in 1987. In Scotland, the task of healing is arguably greater. The first time Johnson was there as prime minister in July, he was booed. On Friday, Johnson spoke to Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, and rejected her calls for a second referendum on Scottish independence, which she says she now has a mandate for, following her own party’s triumph this past week. The Scottish National Party, which wants Scotland to break free, nearly swept the board in Scotland, winning more than 80 percent of the seats.(SD-Agencies) | 