Scottish independence movement places independence in a European context of shared sovereignty.
We defined ‘Scottish sovereignty’ as having two dimensions: the belief that people in Scotland should be able to decide their own government and that they have the right to dissociate Scotland from the UK Brexit vote in 2016. When modelled separately, the latter was a more powerful determinant of being sovereigntist than agreeing with a Scottish right of self-determination, which is a view which a substantial proportion of non-sovereigntists share. In other words, being a Scottish sovereigntist involves recognising that power is shared, with the European Union, rather than the UK, the British Union;and thus we might conclude that they are European unionists rather than British unionists. Scottish sovereigntists are clear on the subject of self-determination, but flexible on the object, closer to modern academic understandings of sovereignty and to the post-sovereignty position than to the classical view. Similarly, being a British unionist on ou rmeasures does not imply accepting a unitary British state in which Westminster and Whitehall make all the key decisions. What will be a heated debate when, and if, a second Scottish independence referendum takes place on 19 October 2023,the terms will be set by the nuances of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘union’ as it operates in the real,modern, world.
The Political Quarterly, Vol. 94, No. 1, January/March 2023© 2022