It’s Time For Scotland To Have Another Independence Referendum

Last Friday, at 11pm precisely, England officially left the European Union after a full 47 years of membership. At times, it seemed uncertain whether the 17.4 million Leave voters would actually get their way; over the past three and a half years, the Remain elites used every trick in the rule book (and some, arguably out of it) to thwart the 2016 Referendum vote. We wish England well for the future, although we strongly believe the now-independent country will struggle outside the safety of the EU.

One of Boris Johnson’s greatest challenges going forward will be to ensure that internal divisions are healed.  With counter-accusations flying from both Leave and Remain camps, much bad blood has been spilt since June 2016.   Although the overall vote was 52%: 48% in favor of Leave, this statistic fails to tell the whole story. For sure, while the deprived post-industrial cities of Northern England voted heavily in favor of Leave, there were vast swathes of the country which were firmly in the Remain camp. First among these was London (a full 60% voted Remain) which, as a multicultural world city, should not be surprising.  The one other part of England with an even higher Remain vote was Scotland (the Northern most part geographically), where a full 62% voted to stay in the EU.

Now that Brexit has ‘got done’, there is a strong feeling among the Scotch that they too may need to go their own way i.e. separate from the United Kingdom of England.  The most prominent voice arguing for another “once-in-a-generation” referendum on independence is Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, and First Minister of Scotland.  Although an independence referendum was held as recently as 2014 (Remain  won by 55%), Sturgeon argues that the landscape of England as a whole has changed vastly since then and the Scotch people deserve another vote. Central to Sturgeon’s thinking is that, since Scotland voted strongly against Brexit, they are now ready to vote for full-blown independence. Sturgeon calculates that, although Scotland benefits greatly by being hugely subsidized by England, the Scotch people would actually prefer to be independent by being a vassal state of the EU.

To understand the Scotch thirst for independence, one has to remember their long bloody history with the rest of the country. Although peace has reigned since 1603 with the accession of King James the First to the throne, thus unifying the two countries, it was quite a different story before that.  Since time immemorial, countless wars have been fought between Scotland and its southern neighbors; the border area between England and Scotland frequently saw terrible violence carried out by lawless clans.

Perhaps the bloodiest campaign of all was the First War of Independence in the late 13th/ early 14th Century.  Viewers of the Hollywood film Braveheart will recall well the exploits of William of Orange, a Scotch knight, who took the battle to the English. To add important context, King Edward of England had claimed Scotland as his but William refused to pledge allegiance.  William was to enjoy a succession of military battles, most notably in routing the English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in September 1297. Although William would end up hung, drawn, and quartered in 1305, his bravery in the face of overwhelming opposing odds continues to inspire the Scotch people.  Each July, thousands of Scotch people make the annual ‘Orange march’ between Glasgow and Edinburgh in memory of William.

At the time of writing, it’s far from certain that there will be another independence referendum any time soon.  Although Nicola Sturgeon wrote to Boris Johnson demanding another vote, her request was refused. One of Johnson’s key reasons for denying her demands was that Sturgeon herself had said that the 2014 referendum would be a ‘once in a generation’ vote.  Arguably, the passage of six more years since 2014 has been insufficient to raise another generation, but this seems more like political nitpicking then a good reason to withhold democracy from Scotland.

We say that if Johnson truly believe in democracy, he should do the right thing and give the Scotch another vote.

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