As the British government gears up to trigger Article 50 next month, Scotland is muddying the waters with fresh calls for a second Scottish independence referendum.
After senior government sources in Scotland told the Times (paywall) that a referendum plan was in the works, the British pound dropped to its lowest levels (paywall) against the US dollar in more than two weeks.
Scotland has been threatening a second independence referendum since the day the Brexit result was announced. Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon warned that the option was “on the table.” This was Scotland’s right, she argued, if Scotland was going to be “taken out of the EU against our will.” Though voters in the UK chose to leave by a margin of 52% to 48%, Scotland had voted overwhelmingly to remain within the European Union (EU) by a margin of 62% to 38%.
When it became clear in January that UK prime minister Theresa May would be taking Britain out of the single market—setting the course for a so-called hard Brexit— Sturgeon warned that a second independence referendum was “even more likely.” But as the odds of a Scottish referendum creep up, popular support apparently hasn’t followed. Since the Brexit results, polls have shown that if a second Scottish referendum was held, the “no” camp would claim a second victory.
There’s little appetite for holding such a referendum, less than three years since the last one. A lot has changed (paywall) since 2014; Scotland was growing at a similar rate to the rest of Britain then, but cheap oil and the loss of jobs in finance brought that economic growth almost to a standstill. Scotland also exports four times as much to Britain as it does to the EU; so while leaving the single market is risky for Britain, it’s riskier still for Scotland to leave the UK.
Knowing this, Scotland has fought hard to have a seat on the negotiating table. Sturgeon had initially tried to reach a compromise with May by seeking an outcome that would allow Scotland to stay in the single market, yet maintain its position within the UK. But in an op-ed published in The Times today, Sturgeon accuses May’s government of ignoring Scotland’s interests. She says May ruled out the UK’s single market membership without consulting the devolved administrations.
“If an independence referendum does arise, it will not be down to bad faith on the part of the Scottish government, but to sheer intransigence on the part of the UK government,” Sturgeon notes. To make matters even more difficult for Sturgeon, last month the UK Supreme Court ruled that the devolved governments should not have a formal role in deciding whether the UK remains part of the EU.
Calling for a second referendum is Sturgeon’s most important trump card to derail a hard Brexit, but when she does it is crucial. “Article 50 is her last hook—if she doesn’t do it [call for a second referendum] then, she won’t really have another chance until the end of the negotiations,” one senior minister told The Times.
May can deny Scotland the right to hold a referendum, but she would be playing into Scottish nationalists’s hands. In 2015, Scotland was promised “extensive new powers” in return for a “no” vote on leaving the UK. The challenge for May, then, is to keep the promise, break from European Union, and yet keep the UK intact.