Scots want new poll on independence
LONDON: Only hours before Britain embarked on its momentous journey out of the European Union, Scotland’s Parliament on Tuesday underscored one of the risks along that path by voting to demand a new referendum on Scottish independence.
By a vote of 69 to 59, members of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh approved plans to request a referendum on independence that could take place just before Britain completes its withdrawal from the EU, a process known as Brexit.
That timing has already been rejected by Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, who must agree to any legally binding referendum on Scotland’s future.
Nevertheless, the Scottish Parliament’s vote sets the stage for a constitutional tussle between London and Edinburgh and it illustrates the far-reaching and destabilising consequences of Britain’s divisive decision in June to withdraw from the EU. In that referendum, 52% of voters chose to leave the EU.
But Scotland voted 62% to 38% to remain in the bloc, illustrating a divergence between Scottish and English politics that poses an existential risk to the UK. In Northern Ireland, too, a majority voted to remain in the EU amid fears that a withdrawal could weaken the peace process there.
The Scottish vote came on the eve of a historic day for a British government intent on disentangling itself from more than four decades of European integration.
Yesterday, Ms May was expected to send formal notification of Britain’s desire to leave the bloc by invoking Article 50 of its governing treaty.
Late on Tuesday, Ms May’s office issued a photograph of the prime minister signing the letter.
Its delivery will start the clock on a negotiation scheduled to last two years.
During that time, Ms May aims to agree to divorce terms and to negotiate a new economic relationship with the countries that remain in the EU.
In a speech that she was expected to deliver yesterday, she was to argue that as Britons “face the opportunities ahead of us on this momentous journey, our shared values, interests and ambitions can — and must — bring us together”, according to excerpts issued by her office.
Ms May will also promise that in negotiations she will “represent every person in the whole United Kingdom”, including citizens of countries in the EU who have made Britain their home.
As she embarks on the talks to leave the bloc, Ms May knows that one of her many challenges is to secure a deal that helps avert a breakup of the UK.
But because of her control over the timing, a referendum on Scottish independence is unlikely to happen any time soon.
The vote on Tuesday empowers Scotland’s pro-independence first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, to formally request a referendum, but she already knows Ms May’s answer: Not now.
The British government plans to withhold agreement at least until it has secured its departure from the bloc, scheduled for the first half of 2019.
On Tuesday, David Mundell, the British government’s Scottish secretary, seemed to push the timetable further by saying that government “won’t be entering into any negotiations at all until the Brexit process is complete”.
That hints at a date beyond the British withdrawal and after any further transitional period, perhaps several years later.
Nevertheless, Britain’s vote has given Ms Sturgeon’s governing Scottish National Party a reason to demand another independence referendum, less than three years after it lost the last one in 2014.
At that time, Scots were told that if they voted to leave the United Kingdom, they would lose their place in the EU. They may now lose it anyway.