Arcadia Scotland

A lot has occurred since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. Nearly a year ago, Theresa May (the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) blocked the Scottish Parliament majority vote for holding a second Scottish independence referendum - telling the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people “now is not the time”. The scheduled departure of the UK from the EU is 11pm on March 29^th 2019.

Some key issues of the future UK exit from the EU concern the nature of a future market and trade agreement with the EU, immigration rules, rights of EU citizens in the UK, the nature of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the jurisdiction of the European Court, and whether there should be a transition period (and the nature and length of this proposed transition) after the departure date.

The Scots voted to remain in the EU by 62% to 38% diverging sharply from England.  It was this divergence that partly prompted the Scottish Parliament to request another independence referendum given the significant change in material circumstances since the last vote in 2014.

The issues that affect Scotland are immigration (Scotland has a much smaller population than England (about 8%) so its needs are very different), economic impact (a recent report suggests that in the event of the UK leaving a single market, Scotland will be over £12.7 billion worse off a year by 2030), devolved powers such as agriculture and fishing (the UK parliament at Westminster is insisting that these get returned to Westminster while the Scottish Parliament considers these devolved powers so under their control).

Perhaps the most interesting constitutional question is whether Scotland will seek independence from the UK once again – if, and when? One recent poll suggests about half of Scots would vote for Scotland’s independence from the United Kingdom in order to stay in the European Union.

There is very much a wait and see approach from the current Scottish political leadership as the outcome of the BREXIT negotiations is very uncertain with deep divisions within the Conservative Party that is currently in the majority of the UK parliament and is currently in charge of negotiating the UK exit from the European Union.

Watch this spot!

For an excellent explanation of all of this, see here from the BBC.