Discussions on Scottish independence revived

Parliamentary elections, June 23 Brexit vote could trigger renewed sentiment

Gary Noble was drilling wellheads in the North Sea when he voted for Scottish independence in 2014. Having lost his oil job and found work selling electrical appliances and couches in a rent-to-own store in Aberdeen, he’d jump at the chance to vote the same way again.

“I went from £50,000 ($93,000) a year to queuing for a food parcel,” said Noble, 31, his roustabout’s overalls swapped for a grey shirt, slacks and a name badge. “Aberdeen needs something done.”

Noble’s career reflects the vagaries of Scotland’s oil industry as the price of crude has plunged, taking with it the jobs that allowed Aberdeen to lay claim to being Europe’s oil capital.

His political convictions underscore what’s at stake for the wider United Kingdom in this week’s elections to the Scottish Parliament that polls show will deliver another clear victory for the Scottish National Party. Scotland’s drive for independence was supposed to run out of road after voters rejected it in the September 2014 referendum, the economic case hollowed out as the price of oil the nationalists said would underpin growth collapsed.

Fewer than two years later, Britain’s constitutional future is once again in question, with Prime Minister David Cameron’s in-out referendum on U.K. membership in the European Union being the potential trigger for another run at Scottish independence.

“The anxiety for Scotland is much less,” Alex Salmond, who led the SNP government from 2007 to 2014, said in an interview in Singapore last month. “Because either way, Scotland is going to end up staying in Europe.”