OPINION:
Independence normally means being free from outside control, but for the Scottish National Party (SNP) it is more about choosing where you are ruled from.
One of the many scare stories Remainers told to try to prevent Brexit was that it would lead to a break-up of the United Kingdom, and the results of the latest general election might seem to back that up.
Boris Johnson won a convincing victory in England and Wales, but it was a very different story in Scotland where the SNP maintained its grip on power, winning 47 out of the 59 Scottish seats in the Westminster parliament.
This was enough for SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, to demand the British government allows a second referendum. She said her country should not be “imprisoned in the UK against its will”
Mind you, she has requested Indyref2 almost as many times as Democrats called for impeachment. And she has done so ever since losing the first referendum in 2014, when 55 percent of Scottish people voted to stay in the U.K.
Like impeachment, Scottish independence is not going to happen any time soon. Prime Minister Johnson quickly rejected her latest request, but that may not have concerned the nationalists too much.
Ms. Sturgeon could be just another socialist bad loser, but, more likely, she is using independence as a bargaining chip to get more funding and concessions for Scotland. It has also enabled her to consolidate the SNPs power base.
When its previous leader, Alex Salmond, persuaded David Cameron to hold the first independence ballot, his party had only six seats in Westminster, but it had just won an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament.
After losing the 2014 independence vote, Mr. Salmond resigned, but a year later the SNP bounced back to win an astonishing 56 seats in the U.K. general election. Why?
Scottish people hadn’t suddenly changed their minds about wanting to leave, so perhaps this was a recognition by voters that the SNP had proved it could win a better deal for Scotland than any of the other parties.
They certainly brought the fear of God to Westminster by almost breaking up the Union and have wielded huge influence ever since.
If this independence call is a bluff, it would explain the apparent contradiction of wanting to separate from the U.K. just to surrender its new sovereignty to Brussels.
And Ms. Sturgeon saying Scotland is imprisoned in the U.K. is a bit rich. Its citizens currently have one MP per 67,000 voters, whereas England has to make do with one MP per 72,000, giving Scotland better representation per capita in the Westminster Parliament.
In 1999, Wales and Northern Ireland were given their own assemblies, whereas Scotland was granted a parliament where it could make its own laws. England has neither.
Currently, the U.K. government’s spending allocation per person is 20 percent higher in Scotland than England. This also gets increased because the Scottish Parliament can charge local taxes, which England cannot do.
Students in England and Wales have seen tuition fees more than triple, while Scottish students enjoy free higher education, paid in large part by English taxpayers many of whose own children are forced to rack up huge debts.
EU students have also been able to study for free in Scotland — but not if they are from England and Wales and that discriminatory policy will continue after Brexit.
Scotland, along with Wales and Northern Ireland has free prescription drugs, but not England. And dental charges in England are 30 percent higher than in Scotland.
Using words like “imprisoned” conjures up images of the 1995 film “Braveheart.” Bad things happened in the distant past, but the 1706-07 Act of Union that created Great Britain came about because the Scottish government was broke and looked to London for help.
This was due to its ill-conceived scheme to set up a trading colony called “Caledonia” near Panama. In return for stabilizing its currency, both parties agreed, albeit begrudgingly by some in the north, that Scotland’s affairs would be run from Westminster.
This was actually not such a big step as the two nations had been ruled by the same monarchs for a hundred years already, and mainly Scottish ones at that. Since then, 11 U.K. prime ministers have been Scottish. The last two were Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
The result has been a long and successful union that has served both countries well. Politics aside, genuine affection exists between most of the U.K.’s citizens and long may that continue.
But, given the funding imbalances that exist through successive U.K. governments’ failures to work out a fairer plan, perhaps Scotland’s leaders could at least show some gratitude.
Better still would be to treat everyone in the United Kingdom equally, otherwise independence cries might get louder south of the border, too.
• Andrew Davies is a U.K.-based video producer and scriptwriter.
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