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Scottish nationals have two supra-national citizenships. One is UK citizenship, the second is EU citizenship. In democratic referenda over the past two years, Scots have voted clearly to retain both citizenships.
Unfortunately it is not possible to respect both democratic decisions of the Scottish people, due to a vote by other nationalities. So where you have democratic decisions which cannot both be implemented, which does democracy demand should take precedence?
It is not a simple question. The vote to retain EU citizenship was more recent and carried a much larger majority than the earlier vote. In addition it was made crystal clear during the campaign that it may require the overturning of the earlier vote. So on these grounds I believe the most recent vote must, as an exercise in democracy, have precedence.
In these circumstances the announcement by the First Minister that she is initiating the procedure on a new referendum for Scottish independence from the UK, in order to retain Scottish membership of the EU, is a sensible step.
Source: Craig Murray
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Saturday June 25 2016, @01:36PM
It was my understanding that it was very clear that the Scots voted to stay in the EU both times, and that if there would of been a clear and certain path to independent EU membership that the independent vote a few years ago would of went a completely different way.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday June 25 2016, @02:09PM
Exactly. The EU refused to offer Scotland any sort of accelerated path to membership, even though it is already in the EU. This was almost certainly at the behest of the UK government. If Scotland had been offered a clear path into the EU, they would already be out of the UK. Now that the UK has voted to leave the EU, I fully expect Scotland to call for another referendum. There will be no holding them this time.
That said, the Scottish politics are classic pie-in-the-sky leftist: they want generous social and governmental programs, paid for by someone else. An independent Scotland would run deficits of around 6% GDP per year [theguardian.com]; that assumes that Scotland keeps all of the UK's North Sea oil. Without the oil, it gets a lot worse. These figures don't account for the current EU investments in Scotland, nor for the additional costs of establishing all of the institutions currently provided by the UK (diplomacy, defense, etc.).
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Saturday June 25 2016, @03:11PM
The EU "refused to offer Scotland any sort of accelerated path to membership" because Spain would instantly veto it in order not to encourage the Catalans. End of story.