ED ALCOCK / M.Y.O.P FOR THE WORLD
ReportageThe separatists won 80% of the parliamentary seats in Scotland, but the British Prime Minister opposes a new referendum and the population remains deeply divided.
With his long hair and his huge gray beard that reaches his chest, Alan MacDonald looks like Gandalf, the magician of the Lord of the Rings. And his anger is thunderous. "I didn't want to leave Europe, me!, he thunders, suddenly raising his voice. England is forcing Scotland to leave the European Union against its will. It puts me in a mad rage. "
In this Glasgow pub, where he comes almost daily in the middle of the afternoon, Mr. MacDonald ("Learn to spell my name correctly, with an" a "to" Mac "! ") spends a lot of time trying to convince customers who are unfortunate to find themselves on the same soft seats as him. The man has been a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), the independence party, since 1979, and now dreams of a second referendum on the independence of Scotland. “When I became a member, we were frankly a marginal movement. Today we are the main party and in two or three years we will be independent. "
A large pro-independence demonstration is announced Saturday January 11 in Glasgow, organized in the wake of the British parliamentary elections of December 12, 2019, which rekindled the hopes of the separatists. The SNP won 48 of the 59 seats at stake. While the Conservatives of Boris Johnson triumphed in England, the independence party won 80% of those elected north of Hadrian's Wall (with 45% of the vote). In Glasgow, he now controls all seven constituencies.
After this tidal wave, Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon followed through on her main campaign promise: to ask London for permission to hold a new independence referendum by the end of 2020. A bill to this effect was tabled in the Scottish Parliament on 19 December.
Widely shared rancor
Only five years ago, in 2014, the Scots rejected independence, 55% versus 45%. But, like the vote in favor of Brexit in England, this election did not end the debate, on the contrary. "In 2012, when we asked people on a scale of 0 to 10 if they were for independence, many answers were between 4 and 6. Today, we mostly have 0 and 10", says Neil McGravey, a political scientist at the University of Strathclyde.
Allan Casey is one of these new converts. Today, the 30-year-old SNP city councilor in the northeast of the city fell into the political cauldron in 2014. "I was working in the construction industry at the time and I started campaigning in the referendum, but initially without becoming a member of the SNP", he explains in his city hall offices, with superb marble staircases.
