Even Hollywood is getting involved: in an interview given at the beginning of September, from his residence in Los Angeles, the Scottish actor Ewan McGregor for the first time supported the independence of Scotland. “We are very on the left in Scotland, and we have been ruled by Tories. I think that now is enough ”, said the star of Trainspotting and of Star wars on the American television channel HBO. And add: “I have always been to stay in the Union [le Royaume-Uni] because I thought it was working but after the Brexit vote I changed my mind. Scots want to stay in the European Union [UE] and the British don’t want to, we’re going in opposite directions. “
“No to yes”
This testimony is worth all the more since it is that of a “No to yes”, someone who had supported the “no” to independence in the 2014 referendum (the latter won with 55.3% of the vote), but who has since revised his judgment. These “No to yes” are more and more numerous: for the first time, since last spring, it is independence that comes first in the opinion polls. The one published by the YouGov institute on August 12 gives 53% of responses in favor of independence. The Survation study, in early September, gave independence 6% ahead of maintaining it in the UK.
In 2016, 62% of Scots voted to stay in the European Union in the Brexit referendum. This result created a dynamic in favor of independence north of Hadrian’s Wall and the Scottish National Party (SNP), the first party in Holyrood (the Parliament of Edinburgh), was able to catalyze it. The Covid-19 epidemic, the mistakes and excesses of the Johnson government have markedly accelerated the trend in the past six months.
The headlong rush of Boris Johnson, ready to question the divorce agreement signed with the EU, can only strengthen the nationalist argument
The United Kingdom obeys a complex institutional functioning: it is a kind of unfinished federation. Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland have autonomous governments and parliaments but with limited (and not all of the same) prerogatives vis-à-vis Westminster and Downing Street, which remain Parliament and government of the United Kingdom as a whole. However, justice, education or health are “devolved” (decentralized) competences: this has given the opportunity, since the start of the pandemic, to each of the regional powers to take crucial decisions perfectly. autonomous.
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