62
Nationalism today is mostly associated with ethnic nationalism, which the SNP as a center-left party does not wish to be associated with.
Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the SNP, has expressed displeasure with the name because of this:
Nicola Sturgeon has admitted she wishes she could change her party’s name because of the “hugely, hugely problematic” ...
61
The Scottish government's 2013 white paper on independence - Scotland's Future - sets out a number of tangible assets that, the paper argues, Scotland would be entitled to a proportion of based on population share. For example, an independent Scotland would seek to take ownership of a share of the United Kingdom's overseas properties, e.g. embassies & ...
48
There is no formalised way for Scotland to leave the UK so for that to happen Parliament would have to agree because that is the supreme legislative body of the UK (Scotland has its own devolved parliament but that only has the powers granted to it by the UK parliament). So they can do nothing legally without the consent of Parliament.
32
The United Kingdom has 3 legal jurisdictions: England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.
Citizens are entitled to bring cases in their own jurisdiction, or any other by mutual agreement (particularly for civil cases). In fact, independent cases are being heard in all 3 jurisdictions.
There is a single UK-wide Supreme Court which acts as the final ...
26
There would be a few issues with this approach. Firstly, back in 2012, the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution looked at this very argument, and concluded that even an 'opinion-poll' referendum as you suggest would require a section 30 order.
The first possible counter-argument is that if the referendum question were to ask merely for the ...
24
In the UK system, the speaker is politically neutral, and this requirement of neutrality has been taken seriously by generations of speakers. Moreover it is quite common for the speaker not to be from the majority party. The speaker is not a governmental position, and it is quite common for the speaker to come from a minority party. The current Westminster ...
23
Scotland is a country, but not an independent country. In other words, it's not a Sovereign state.
Wikipedia defines a country as:
A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign ...
20
The 2014 independence referendum was accepted as being a once in a generation referendum, unless there was a "material change of circumstances". The SNP is arguing that Brexit amounts to a material change in circumstances and therefore the criteria have been met for another referendum.
One of the big issues in the 2014 referendum was Scotland's ...
18
The SNP's long term goal is independence for Scotland. During the last referendum on the subject, the issue of which currency Scotland would use was an important point of contention. The legal situation is somewhat unclear and, possibly as a tactic to convince voters to remain in the UK, the UK national government suggested that they would not want to share ...
17
The Westminster parliament is the parliament of the United Kingdom. Scotland is part of the United Kingdom. (The parliament of Scotland has authority over certain "devolved" matters only.)
Any act of the Westminster parliament or of the UK government affecting Scotland must be lawful under the law of Scotland. This gives Scotland's courts ...
17
The answer is yes. E.g. fishing rights in the North Sea would again be something that could be dictated by the EU. (Assuming they joined the EU)
15
I'm sure many of the factors you mention are relevant, but I think the main reason is much simpler:
Scotland voters are very heavily weighted towards being Labour, SNP, or Liberal Democrat voters (i.e. the "left" of the political spectrum) whereas voters in the rest of the country are more likely to be Conservative voters (the "right" of the political ...
15
To address your questions in order:
It is constitutionally possible for the Westminster parliament to hold any referendum held by the Scottish parliament to be non-binding on itself and thus effectively worthless. Indeed, unless I'm misreading the Scotland Act 1998, Westminster could (in principle) abolish Holyrood at any time it chooses. As to whether it ...
15
The customs considerations would be the same. There would have to be customs controls unless England joined the customs union. (Unless the EU somehow agreed to let Scotland join and remain outside the customs union, but that is unlikely indeed.) Newly-independent Scotland could presumably join the common travel area, so there would not need to be ...
15
Apart from the indirect but legal techniques of obstruction, there don't seem to be legal options.
Obstruction
The Scottish Parliament could pass all sorts of laws in the health, agriculture and justice departments, designed to frustrate the workings of the United Kingdom up to the point where Westminster might concede.
This obstruction process would be ...
13
It is not. The number of seats is disproportionate, but not the level of support. This is a consequence off the First Past the Post system.
2019 General Election:
Party % share
SNP Scottish National Party 45.0%
CON Conservative 25.1%
LAB Labour 18.6%
LD Liberal Democrat 9.5%
GRN Green ...
13
No. Weights and measures is a matter reserved for the UK government.
The Scotland Act, 1998, sets out that "Units and standards of weight and measurement" are a reserved matter (Schedule 5, Party II, Section C9), under the wider category of Trade and Industry.
They would need permission from the UK Government to ban imperial measurements, in the same way ...
12
First of all, your offhanded "Aside from Scottish pride / nationalism" seems a little misguided. national pride/nationalism is pretty much one of the MAIN reasons most nations are independent instead of unified.
Second, the main reasons given are economics, most specifically, hydrocarbon and renewable natural resources.
A more full list of reasons can be ...
12
Probably not very hard.
Scotland already does all of the things it needs to in terms of political systems, laws and regulations to be an EU member, since it already is one. It would have to take over the tasks that are now done by the U.K. government on its behalf, but otherwise, it would be qualified.
I suspect that it could be done in a year or two (the ...
11
No, these titles are not used in either the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Senedd. The predominant reason for this is that there is no restriction in these chambers about referring to members by name - in the House of Commons, this is prohibited - the only time a member is mentioned by name is when they are disciplined (or "named") by the chair. ...
10
I'd like to start by making a distinction between the Scottish government and Scottish public. As you said, only one MSP voted in favour of Trident. But the Scottish public are more balanced, with slightly more in favour than not. The Scottish government are presently dominated by the SNP, who have been anti-nuclear since their inception. Initially they ...
10
It's technically an open question. The referendum is on one and only one question: will Scotland be an independent country? Were the referendum to succeed, all resultant questions about politics, a constitution, currency, etc. would have to be internally debated among the Scots.
But Scotland already has a government and a political system. Over the past few ...
10
One thing to note is also that Scotland as a whole is far more liberal and left-wing (both socio-economically and in terms of global issues) than England is, especially under the leadership of David Cameron. For some Scots, independence gives them the opportunity to express their political beliefs that membership in the united kingdom never would.
10
YouGov covered this territory at start of 2020.
There isn't as much of an obvious Indy+Remain/UK+Leave split as you might imagine, but it is substantial.
Do note that this poll covered votes in the previous referenda, and despite the column heading the Scottish Independence referendum was first. There is no reason why an individual might not believe an ...
9
José Manuel Barroso doesn't seem to think Scotland could join the EU. The reason behind this I believe, is that politicians do not want to set a precedent for the same thing to happen with other countries.
Catalonia wants to held a referendum like Scotland to see if they should become independent of Spain or not. Prime minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy ...
9
I'd assume that a hard border between the two would be fairly unpalatable and possibly not even practical.
I’m not sure that that is going to be true and I assume you are making a comparison with the Northern Ireland border here. Allow me to very briefly highlight the problems of the Northern Irish border, the only current land border the UK has.
In its ...
9
Scottish people elect representatives to both Westminster and Holyrood.
There's news about the group who chose to go to a Scottish court, rather than those who went to an English court, as they were the first to be heard, because the English court wasn't hearing cases that week.
8
None of the EU treaties specifically deal with this explicitly and this is a complex legal topic.
(There are claims that the "Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties" would solve that but so many countries haven't signed it that this can basically be ignored)
Firstly there isn't really a set procedure how countries leave the EU (...
8
A government of the Popular Party could, even if it is in minority.
Once a government is elected, executive power is at its hands. Its executive decisions do not need the support of the MP who gave its approval (or abstention) to the appointment of the government.
The only option for these MP, if they become really pissed with the government, is to try to ...
8
The Westminster government's opinion is that the ability to organise an independence referendum is not one of the Scottish parliament's devolved powers, and thus far the SNP don't seem to be intending to test this. As such, it isn't a matter of binding Scotland from holding a referendum, but binding the Westminster parliament from calling one. But the ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible