Independence squared: now the Shetland Islands want to say goodbye to Edinburgh

LONDON – Will Shexit arrive after Brexit? The Shetland Islands want independence from Scotland. They are an archipelago of just 23,000 inhabitants, closer to Norway than to Edinburgh, famous for its ponies, herding dogs and sheep’s wool. But they also have oil fields in their waters. So, with the dream of becoming a tiny northern emirate, they ask to be able to govern themselves.

It sounds like a joke but it is instead a big headache for Nicola Sturgeon, the premier of the Scottish autonomous government. If he refuses the Shetlanders to organize a referendum for independence from Scotland, how can he blame Boris Johnson, who for now refuses Scotland to organize a referendum for independence from the United Kingdom (the second, after the one in 2014 which ended 55-45 percent to continue to be part of it)?

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After a debate lasting just one hour, on Thursday the municipal council of the archipelago voted 18-2 on a motion to formally study options “to achieve political and financial self-determination”. Some of the proponents would not want to become a true sovereign state, settling for “British crown dependency” status, such as the Isle of Jersey in the Channel, but even that would be a blow to Scotland’s finances and identity, because in if so, the Shetlands could keep the proceeds of the local oil industry entirely for themselves. Potentially, the citizens of these remote islands of shepherds and farmers would all get rich. In addition to black gold, they also have gas fields and the waters abound with fish.

In any case, any move towards self-determination would have to be approved through a referendum and that is precisely what the Shetland authorities intend to ask the Edinburgh government for. Against which they have similar complaints as the Scottish government has towards the British: they say they feel forgotten, mistreated and discriminated against, drawing more disadvantages than advantages from belonging to Scotland.

What is certain is that the threat posed by the far northern corner of Great Britain must be taken seriously: the Shetland population is descended from the Vikings and retains their indomitable spirit, underlined by the festival held every summer in which they are symbolically burned. replicas of the ships with which the famous Scandinavian warriors ruled the seas. Belonging to Norway until 1400, in the fifteenth century the archipelago was conquered by Scotland, which two hundred years later was conquered by England. Big fish eat small fish that ate even smaller fish. Now the phenomenon could be reversed, with a series of autonomist pushes: Scotland wanting to leave Great Britain, Shetlands wanting to leave Scotland. Like Dante’s law of retaliation: do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

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