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Scotland's First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, launches her manifesto during the Scottish Parliamentary election in Glasgow, Scotland.
Scotland's rocky road ahead
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minister, says another independence referendum for Scotland is now a matter of "when not if," and that after leaving the UK, Scotland will launch a bid to rejoin the EU. But there are formidable obstacles ahead.
Getting to a vote will force a complex game of chicken with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. If a majority of Scots then vote for independence — hardly a sure thing – the process of extricating their new country from the UK will make Brexit look easy. Next, come the challenges of EU accession. In other words, Scotland's journey down the rocky road ahead has only just begun.
Obstacle 1 – Getting to a vote. Scotland can't stage a legally binding referendum without approval from the UK parliament, which can't happen without a go-ahead from Boris Johnson. Here's where the political game begins. Johnson knows an independence vote in Scotland could still go either way. Polls suggest support for independence winning by the narrowest of margins.
If Johnson says yes to a referendum, he could become the PM who lost Scotland and broke up the UK. That would likely end his political career. If he says no, he risks driving up support inside Scotland in favor of breaking away — and he knows he can't say no forever. The UK can't simply hold Scotland hostage. At least not indefinitely.
For now, Johnson can say, "Nicola, shouldn't you be focused on COVID and recovery?" To which Sturgeon will reply, "Yes, Boris, we are focused on COVID. But when it's under control, we want to vote." Johnson can throw money at Scotland and offer it more autonomy, but it's unlikely that either will change many Scottish minds on a question as large as independence.
Obstacle 2 – Winning the referendum. In 2014, Scotland voted to remain within the UK by a margin of 55-45. Much has changed since then. Though Scotland voted 62-38 for the UK to remain within the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum, the far larger number of votes in England carried the day, and Brexit pulled Scotland unwillingly from the EU. That's the main reason there's been a shift in Scotland in favor of independence since the first referendum.
But no one knows what might happen during a new campaign. Johnson's government will pull out all the stops to persuade Scots that independence is much riskier than they think, and he'll insist Scotland will be economically stronger inside the UK than outside. If Scotland votes to remain, even by the tiniest of margins, it will be at least a generation before another referendum can be contemplated.
Obstacle 3- Leaving the UK. Extricating Scotland from the UK will be far more costly and risky than the UK leaving Europe. After all, the UK joined the EU in 1973, while Scotland has been part of Great Britain since 1707. The legal and regulatory ties will be extraordinarily hard to untangle. The value of Scotland's exports to the rest of the UK is four times more than to the EU. That would change over time if Scotland joined the EU, but a hard border between England and Scotland would create an immediate shock and lasting damage. At least one recent study found that Scottish exit from the UK would be far more economically damaging than Brexit, even if Scotland eventually rejoins the EU.
Adding to the friction, Johnson's government, mindful of the movement for Irish reunification and independence chatter in Wales, will make everything to do with Scotland's exit as contentious and painful as possible.
Obstacle 4 – Joining the EU. This might be the easiest to surmount. After all, as part of the UK, Scotland was an EU member for nearly half a century. The process of political, economic, legal and regulatory alignment would be far easier than for any previous EU membership candidate.
That said, accession would depend on a unanimous vote of all current members. Spain, under challenge by Catalan separatists, might wield a veto to avoid setting a precedent for breakaway states. EU concessions to ease Spanish fears could smooth Scotland's path, depending on what's happening in Spanish politics at that moment.
Bottom line. Brexit reminded us that secession movements aren't driven by pragmatism. They're fueled by hope, fear, anger, and pride. Those who want an independent Scotland can overcome all these obstacles. But we shouldn't underestimate the complexity of the problems ahead, or how long it will take to solve them.Demonstrators march for Scottish Independence through Glasgow.
Scotland votes, with independence on its mind
Scots go to the polls this week to vote in their first parliamentary election since Brexit. We already know that the incumbent Scottish National Party will win most seats. Will its majority be big enough to demand another independence referendum?
Almost seven years ago, Scotland turned down independence in a plebiscite by a 10-point margin. But that was before the entire United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in 2016 — against the wishes of most people in Scotland.
Many Scots felt cheated in the 2014 referendum because a lot of them voted to remain in the UK precisely to also stay in the EU. As post-Brexit political chaos that followed has further boosted nationalist sentiment in Scotland, the outcome of Thursday's vote will be closely watched in four capitals.
Edinburgh. COVID has dominated the campaign in Scotland, with independence lurking in the background. One of the reasons that the SNP is riding so high in the polls is Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's widely praised pandemic response strategy, which resulted in Scotland reporting less deaths per capita than the UK average. Perceptions of her competence were often compared with those of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, already unpopular with Scots before COVID and whose often-haphazard approach to the crisis has made his approval ratings there plummet.
Many Scots believe they would have handled COVID even better without the British government meddling in their affairs. Post-Brexit support for Scottish independence has surged in particular among women, in large part due to Sturgeon's much stronger approval rating with females than her estranged predecessor Alex Salmond.
With about half of Scots currently in favor of leaving the UK, Sturgeon seized on the opportunity by proposing in March a draft law to hold a second plebiscite. Unsurprisingly, her move was lambasted by opposition unionist parties, who accused the chief minister of politicizing the pandemic to drum up support for her separatist cause. Now she says ending COVID is the immediate priority.
London. In the UK, however, the election is all about Scottish independence. An outright SNP majority in Holyrood is all but assured to encourage Scottish nationalists to demand another referendum. That'll set up the center-left Sturgeon on a collision course with the center-right Johnson, who has called the 2014 vote a "once-in-a-generation" event.
The British PM has a lot on the line with Scotland's election. His predecessor David Cameron took a huge gamble on the 2014 referendum: the result encouraged him to agree to the Brexit vote, which then ended Cameron's political career. That's what Johnson faces if his government loses a second Scottish plebiscite. The problem is, will he be able to resist the immense political pressure that the SNP majority would put on him to grant another referendum that most Scots want?
More immediately, Johnson's Tories are running neck-in-neck for second place with the opposition Labour Party. Coming in third would be a major embarrassment for the PM. Labour leader Keir Starmer is against holding a fresh independence vote in the near term, but unlike Johnson is open to the possibility later on.
Belfast. Northern Ireland also voted against leaving the EU — albeit by a slimmer margin than Scotland — but popular support for reunification with the independent Republic of Ireland is rising due to growing discontent over the economic fallout of Brexit and demographic trends that favor Catholic republicans over Protestant unionists. If the Scots get another referendum soon, the Northern Irish will be next in line.
Brussels. If Scotland were to eventually vote in a referendum to break away from the UK, one of the main reasons would be so it could rejoin the EU. Regaining membership, however, would not be a quick process, despite Scotland having been part of the EU — as a UK territory — from more than 40 years.
That's because it would require consent from all 27 EU member states, among which Spain could possibly veto to avoid setting a precedent for Catalonia. But as long as the Scots don't vote without permission from the central parliament, as Catalans did in 2017, Edinburgh may be able to negotiate a compromise — probably economic concessions — with Madrid that doesn't give hope to Catalan separatists.
Scexit? Whether or not a referendum is called soon, the likely outcome of Thursday's election means that talk of Scotland's independence will dominate UK politics for the next few years — as Brexit did from 2016 onward. Those who warned then that Brexit would ultimately break up the UK were clearly onto something.