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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: 3, Interesting) by theluggage on Saturday June 25 2016, @02:29PM
Can someone explain to an American what the relationship is between Great Britain, Scotland, and Wales?
...and further to the other responses:
Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland are all subject to the UK Parliament in London (in which they are all represented) but quite substantial powers [parliament.scot] have been "devolved" to the regional Parliaments/Assemblies in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland.
The Scottish parliament is currently dominated by the Scottish Nationalist Party.
The SNP technically lost the Scottish Independence referendum a couple of years ago but, in practice, won increased powers for the Scottish parliament and enjoyed a massive surge in popularity & membership.
At the last general election, the SNP also won most of the Scottish seats in the UK Parliament, making them the third largest party, which has never happened before. The ruling Conservative party only have a small majority - so if they are less-than-unanimous* on any vote then the SNP becomes significant. The Labour party opposition, who usually have a lot of Scottish MPs, were virtually driven out of Scotland at the last election, so they're dependent on the SNP in any vote - although Labour and SNP are pretty close politically on everything bar independence.
*Since the Conservative party are less-than-unanimous on Brexit (candidate for understatement of the year) then any vote to implement Brexit is going to be popcorn time.