Analyst: Britain’s keeping of Scotland in UK ‘political folly

It would be “political folly” if Britain tried to confine Scotland to the United Kingdom against its will and hamper the Scottish independence referendum, a political commentator says, arguing that the move could lead to civil unrest across the country.

John Wight, a Scottish writer and journalist from Edinburgh, made the remark in a Thursday edition of Press TV’s The Debate program while commenting on Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s call on the UK to allow her country to hold a fresh referendum on independence.

Sturgeon, the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), has recently won 48 of the 59 Scottish seats in parliament but British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, declines to approve of another plebiscite in Scotland.

Johnson argues the results of the 2014 referendum should be respected.

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“The move would only harden support for the Scottish independence and increase the temper in the country and could really lead to civil unrest as we came to see in Catalonia… This would be political folly and Scotland would incur a lot of international sympathy for its case,” Wight told Press TV on Thursday.

Sturgeon is apparently anxious to avoid going down the route of the Catalan independence movement in Spain, which organized a referendum in October 2017 that was not recognized by Madrid.

Following what it called an “illegal” referendum, Spain cracked down on the Catalan independence movement by jailing or forcing into exile its leadership.  

Sean O’Grady, former economics editor at the Independent from London, was the other panelist invited to The Debate program, who said the British government was firmly against the Scottish independence bid and that the SNP leader opposed a “unilateral declaration of independence” similar to that of the Catalans.

“The British government is unanimous in saying ‘no’… and Nicola Sturgeon very sensibly has ruled out the idea of going down the road the Catalans did in Spain, and other people in their territories around the world have done, which is unilateral declaration of independence, because she knows that the British government would not recognize it, it would be impossible to make it real and, of course, the United Nations and the European Union would not recognize it either, and in fact they might think it was pretty a poor move,” O’Grady said.

“It’s hard to see how this British government can say ‘yes’ to it because it doesn’t want to and because at least for a year or two or three, it is going to be very difficult, even if it wanted to, to have a debate about Scottish independence at the same time as you are trying to do Brexit,” he added.

Sturgeon shifts to a more radical position on independence

In a dramatic shift, Nicola Sturgeon has said that she will press ahead with Scottish independence regardless of Brexit outcome.

The Scottish voted in an independence referendum in 2014 to remain in the United Kingdom, but they also voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum to stay in the European Union, while a majority of English and Welsh voters supported leaving the bloc.

Since then Sturgeon has argued that Scotland deserves another vote on becoming an independent nation because it is being taken out of the EU against its will.

The SNP leader has repeatedly said that she wants to hold an independence poll in the second half of 2020.

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