S COTLAND FIGHTING FOR THE INDEPENDENCE

Scotland was once an independent kingdom. In 1603 the king of Scotland inherited the English throne. He ruled as James I of England and as James VI of Scotland. In 1707 the Scottish parliament was merged with the English parliament and Scotland lost its political independence.

Despite some independence from the rule of the central government in London, especially in running their educational, legal and local government systems, in recent years that has not been enough for many Scots. Since the discovery of oil in the North Sea off the Scottish coast, they felt they should have even more independece from Westminster.

A Scottish National Party was formed in 1934, some of its members wanted the complete independence. Others fought for devolution. What does devolution mean? It means having a separate parliament or Assembly in Scotland to deal with Scottish affairs.

A first referendum was held in 1979 to find out how much the Scots really wanted to rule their country. However, only the 33% of the total electorate voted “yes” for devolution and this was not enough for the United Kingdom Parliament to grant it. Only during the premiership of Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007, a Scottish Parliament was finally set up.

Another Scottish independence referendum took place on Thursday 18 September The referendum question was: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” and voters were asked to choose yes or no. It happened because the Scottish National Party, who campaigned for Scotland to be independent, won a majority at the last Scottish Parliament election.

Anti-independence campaigners said that an independent Scotland would inevitably hold less sway. They question whether an independence Scotland would be better didn’t convince the majority of the Scottish who voted “No”. They believed Scotland would have less influence in the world.