Unity in Question (Part 1) - Scotland's Independence

 Unity in Question (Part 1) - Scotland's Independence

    On January 31 2020, at 11.00pm GMT, the United Kingdom successfully and officially withdrew from the European Union, closing a 4-year long chapter that we call, Brexit. But to really understand Brexit, let's go back to 2016, the year of Trump, Zika and the Olympics. When then British Prime Minister, David Cameron, pushed forward Brexit and held a referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU and with a 77% voter turnout, 51.9% of people voted to leave and 48.1% to stay. But, when looking at how certain areas voted, you can see something quite peculiar indeed. Those are the results of Northern Ireland and Scotland. These areas had huge swarms of people who voted to stay. In Northern Ireland, it was 55% while in Scotland, that was 62%. In some areas, such as Glasgow and Edinburgh (the larger cities in Scotland), this was as high as 65% to leave. This election not only showed a significant amount of people who thought that joining the EU was stupid, but also gave us a clear picture of the divide going on in the UK. 

    The United Kingdom is now more divided than ever. Especially Northern Ireland (NE) and Scotland, which have been constantly fighting for independence, in Scotland's case and for unification with Ireland, in NE's case. But today, we will focus on Scotland, the land of Trident, Kilts and Beautiful Natural Land. Which have been fighting for independence for the past 50 years and this fight is still going on...

How Scotland turned into UK...

    This goes back pretty far, I mean 400 years ago far. When Scotland tried to establish a colony in Panama and the United States, so they set off as other countries, like Britain and France set off in what we learn in textbooks as the Colonial Age. So how did that expedition go? Horribly, is how that went. Scotland went broke and had literally no money. Meanwhile, England down south, was doing pretty well, it had established colonies in America, Africa, Asia as well as Oceania. So seeing this, the Scottish were nudging their neighbours. In the end, an official act of unification was signed and the Scottish of Scotland and the English of England came together and became the British of Great Britain in 1707. This union was not good, it was beautifully beautiful. Scotland joined England to form the world's largest empire expanding to every continent and owning roughly a quarter of land in the world. Scotland was doing well for itself as well. It's population grew along with its infrastructure. In the 1920s, Northern Ireland became a part of this union until this union became a little unstable. The year was 1945 and after a successful end to the Second World War, well, only a kind of successful end. You see, during the end of the war, many colonies felt that they were left to fight the war on their own. So became a little more violent towards the British. Starting with more importantly India in 1947, and then the African nations in the 50s and 60s. Singapore in 1959 (had to sneak my country) and then everyone else. In 1997, the last little piece of colonial Britain fell off. Hong Kong, which the British had transformed from a sleepy village to a bustling city for 99 years but let's get back to Scotland and the UK

    Let's tell the story of Opposition. Now Scottish Independence has been a thing that lasts all the way back to since the Scottish United with the English. So nothing surprising there. But the most successful independence movement is the one we are currently witnessing. That story begins in 1934 when the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party merged to form the Scottish National Party (SNP), the most successful Scotland party in British history. The SNP only contested in Scottish seats because they were a Scottish Party. And only won their first seat in the House of Commons in 1967. And it went all the way up. At this point, the idea of an 'Independent Scotland' didn't seem that far of stretch. So in 1997, the Scottish people voted on whether having their on Scottish Parliament would be a little cushier so that they could decide on more local issues. This was put to a referendum and with huge voter turnout, the results were that 75% of Scotland were for the idea of a Scottish Parliament while another 25% were against. Scotland's parliament further boosted the idea of an 'Independent Scotland'. This became the very much apparent in 2014...

Scotland: An Independent Future

    In 2014, British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed on having a Scottish Independence Referendum. This was big! It was a chance for Scotland to finally have a voice. Debates and clashes occured and people were brought to together under a common goal and...

we lost. Well, that sucks. Despite a record voter turnout of 84.6%, only 45% of people voted to leave the UK while another 55% voted to stay. This was a disappointment, especially to the SNP whose leader, Alex Salmons, resigned after that embarrassing defeat. Which leaves us with the current SNP leader, Nicole Sturgeon. Now Sturgeon has been pretty vocal about another referendum and has tried to ask the British Prime Minister for permission for a second one but it hasn't been smooth. Theresa May has been pretty ignorant since she had to deal with Brexit and Boris Johnson has already said that "No." and that he will allow a referendum to be held. And that's not it, in the recent elections, the SNP has also been losing its grip on both the House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament.  

2021 Scottish Parliament Elections

    In the last Parliament Elections, the SNP had a bit of an embarrassment after it lost its majority status. So this election has intensified the race in Scotland, whether the ruling party can continue its rule of the Scottish Parliament or will they hit another road barrier once again. News coverage of this election has also skyrocketed and on the day of writing, the BBC News will have a special episode of Question Time, which is basically a nerdy way of saying 'Debate'. Anyway, I'll be updating and posting out a FOC Shorts Article when the results have been confirmed, which is 6 May 2021.

Farren's Opinion Corner

    So the question is when? When will there be an independent Scotland, maybe we will never have an independent Scotland and this is just a done deal, or maybe, this is a fight and that one day, you and me will wake up and see an independent Scotland. I think this fight is coming to an end. I think that Scotland will become independent. It's only a matter of time. It could take 5, 10, 20, 50 years. But I believe, as of the current political situation, that Scotland will scoot out of the UK, breaking 300 years of a unified nation on the British Isles. But here's another question, will there ever be a joined Ireland? Or a unified, independent Wales. Are we seeing the breakaway of the United Kingdom? Well, that's a bit far fetch to say the least. But then again, in 2017, we were also betting that Scotland and Wales would break off the union. From the breakup of it's colony, to the breakup of it's union. We could be seeing the fastest expansion of an empire to one crumbling on its knees. We can already see after the death of Prince Philip, to the current Harry & Meghan Affair, to the current COVID-19 situation. I believe that Britain is a wounded nation and someone must rally everyone back and stitch up the UK. How did I come to this conclusion? Easy. Just return back to the start of this article. 52-48 is not a landslide, it's a narrow win.  If I could think of people who have unified the union, there would be two. Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. We need another Churchill or Thatcher. And in my deep and honest opinion, Boris Johnson's just not it...

Happy Reading!

Happy Earth Day!

I hope you enjoy this new series of Unity in Question. Part 2 is coming soon...

Farren's Personal Corner:

farrenpersonalcorner.blogspot.com