On Thursday the September 18 2014, 55.3% of the Scottish population for Scotland to remain as part of the UK. ‘No’ voters were told that this would ensure a stability that an independent Scotland would otherwise threaten.
However, less than two years later, a UK wide vote saw that instability was to be part of Scotland’s future anyway, as an even slimmer majority of 51.9% of Britain voted we leave the EU. This was despite an overwhelming 62% of Scottish voters voting ‘remain.’
Since then, the debate over Scottish independence has kicked up with a new fervour. More and more Scots are demanding a second referendum, stating that the circumstances call for a change of mind.
Former SNP depute leader, Angus Robertson, hopes to spur this referendum on. In his latest move, Robertson has been at the forefront of the organisation Progress Scotland which as stated in the website “aims to help prepare the case for Scotland to progress towards independence, keeping pace with the views of the people who make their lives here.”
In a recent radio interview, Robertson said that “regardless if people’s views on the timing, I think everybody would agree we need to be best prepared for whenever it happens.”
Progress Scotland seeks to collect data and the opinions of the Scottish people, in order to best represent the change that the Scottish people want to see if Scotland were to achieve independence.
Robertson also added that following the Brexit referendum, people were searching for a “better alternative.” He believes that an independent Scotland provides the answer.
Mark Diffley, the man in charge of polling and research for Progress Scotland wrote on Twitter that he was “delighted to be working with Angus, a hugely respected figure across the political spectrum. My role is to make the research rigorous, objective and high quality and I will ensure my input has that focus. This is about understanding what people think and how views are changing.”
As First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon put it in a recent speech she gave at Georgetown University, the need for a second referendum “has only got stronger through the experience of Brexit.”
She emphasised her wish that an independent Scotland would become a “country that then seeks to play its part in an interconnected world. And that is a vision that I think more and more people in Scotland, in the wake of the Brexit experience, find very attractive.”
Only time will tell what Brexit has in store for the UK. Potentially, an independent Scotland.
Brig Secretary 2019-2020. Studying Politics BA(Hons).
[…] Brig covered the launch of Progress Scotland , the organisation to gauge public opinion on Scottish Independence set up by the former Deputy […]