Scottish independence movement weakened on 10th anniversary of referendum

On 18 September 2014, the Scots were faced with a question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” Ten years later, the demand for a second referendum in the wake of Brexit is losing steam, with a weakened Scottish National Party (SNP) and a society demanding a resolution to more pressing problems. The secessionist movement dates back to the beginning of the 17th century to recall the times when Scotland had not yet allied itself with England to form Great Britain. In 1997, a referendum laid the foundations for a local Parliament, insufficient for a large sector of the population that continued to demand independence. This horizon began to become real in December 2012, when the then British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, signed a historic pact to take the ballot box. An all or nothing that marked an unprecedented challenge for both parties. However, the SNP-led campaign failed to take off, with 55.3 percent of voters saying ‘no’ to the breakup. From then on, the central government made it clear that there was no room for any repetition from the mouths of the successive Downing Street tenants. The SNP, on the other hand, did not throw in the towel and found its main argument in Brexit. In the referendum on the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU, in June 2016, 62 percent of Scots opted to remain within the bloc, against the English criteria. This was argued by Salmond’s successor, Nicola Sturgeon, who governed for almost a decade, and to a lesser extent Humza Yousaf, First Minister between March 2023 and May 2024. The current leader, John Swinney, has taken up the baton at the most turbulent time. Swinney said a few days after taking office in May that he saw independence as feasible within five years “because the arguments in favour are compelling”, but the social context is no longer the same. Problems such as the rising cost of living are now a priority, although Edinburgh has attributed this and other issues to a lack of help from London. The SNP, which had always advocated drawing political interpretations from any election, promised to revive its independence campaign if it won the majority of the seats reserved for Scotland in the British general election on July 4. It obtained its worst result since 2010. This month, at his party conference, Swinney admitted that the electoral blow was “incredibly hard”, but advocated learning from mistakes and again appealed to secession as an “urgent and essential” goal for the future development of Scotland. POLITICAL AND JUDICIAL REJECTION The Scottish authorities have a detailed roadmap of what the day after hypothetical independence would look like, for example, specifying that they would draw up a “temporary” Constitution until a definitive one is drafted, would operate with the current currency until introducing the Scottish pound “as soon as possible” and would request re-entry into the European Union. However, the current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has limited himself to building bridges with the Scottish Government while making it clear that he will not change London’s outright rejection of a second consultation. And without the backing of the central Executive – as happened more than a decade ago with Cameron – nothing can happen. In the judicial sphere, the red lines are marked by a ruling issued by the British Supreme Court in November 2022, according to which the Scottish Parliament cannot act on its own to call a legally binding referendum. The ruling states that “the laws that led to the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 do not grant it powers over areas of the Constitution, including the union between Scotland and England, which are reserved to the British legislative body.” The polls are also not in favour of a second referendum, as practically all those published in recent years predict that, if the vote were to be held, the “no” vote would prevail again. In August, a survey published by ‘The Sunday Times’ placed the rejection of independence at 48 percent, compared to 45 percent of people who were in favour. The rate of undecided people is around 7 percent, although other studies put it above 10 percent.