Scotland moves toward vote on independence

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images - A general view of people walking along the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. The British national government has opened formal negotiations with the Scots to set a date for an independence referendum that could tear modern Britain.

By Anthony Faiola,
WashPost
Published: February 25

EDINBURGH, Scotland — After centuries of war with England, politicians in this stately city signed away Scotland’s sovereignty in the early 1700s for the promise of riches and the glory of empire. Three hundred years later, resurgent nationalists here are plotting a new rebellion to win it back.

Appealing to the force of tartan pride, the Scottish National Party won surprise control of the regional Parliament last year, which thrust the separatist fantasy of hearing “Scots Wha Hae” on the bagpipes as the national anthem into the realm of distinct possibility. The British government, boxed into a precarious corner, has opened formal negotiations with the Scots to set a date for an independence referendum.

Scotland’s independence crusade is emerging as the greatest threat to the cohesion of the United Kingdom since Ireland achieved independence — a ­three-decade process that culminated in 1949, when Ireland left the Commonwealth.

Scotland won the right to a “devolved” Parliament in the late 1990s and has sweeping powers over, for example, its judicial system and government spending. But full independence would give the SNP the authority to fulfill a wide array of pledges, including expelling the British nuclear fleet from Scottish waters, withdrawing from NATO and unwinding Scottish regiments from Britain’s military forces overseas. It would also give politicians in Edinburgh the freedom to vote separately from — and perhaps counter to — Britain in world bodies such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.

(More here.)