I hope Edinburgh Magazine will consider publishing this, not as a party-political attack, but as a heartfelt letter from one Scot to another.
Because I think many of us are tired.
Tired of being told that Scotland had its say in 2014 and must now stay quiet forever. Tired of being told that democracy is alive and well in Westminster while Scotland’s democratic voice is treated like an inconvenience. Tired of being told that everything has changed in Britain, but somehow Scotland alone is not allowed to change its mind.
The United Kingdom has had six prime ministers since the Brexit referendum in 2016. David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and now Keir Starmer. Governments have changed direction, leaders have fallen, promises have been abandoned and entire economic strategies have been rewritten.
Yet Scotland is told that a referendum held twelve years ago must stand as a final answer for all time.
How is that democracy?
I did not vote Yes in 2014. I say that honestly. Like many people I knew, I was nervous. I believed there were benefits to remaining in the UK. I believed the single European market mattered. I believed our place in Europe mattered. I listened when the Better Together campaign warned that an independent Scotland might have to reapply to join the European Union. I listened when we were told that staying in the UK was the safer way to protect our European future.
For me, and for many friends and family members, that argument mattered.
Then, two years later, Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union, and we were taken out anyway.
Scotland voted 62% to remain. Every council area in Scotland backed Remain. Yet because voters elsewhere in the UK, especially England, chose Leave, Scotland was dragged out of the EU, out of the single market and out of the customs union.
That was the moment something changed in me.
Not overnight. Not in anger alone. But slowly, painfully, with the feeling that the promise I had trusted in 2014 had been broken.
We were warned independence could risk our place in Europe. Instead, staying in the UK cost us that place.
That is why the case for another referendum is gathering steam. It is not because people have forgotten 2014. It is because they remember it. They remember what was said. They remember what was promised. They remember being told that the UK offered stability, security and influence. Then they watched Brexit happen, watched Westminster tear itself apart, watched living costs rise, watched trade become harder and watched young people lose years of easy access to European study, work and cultural exchange.
Even now, with Erasmus+ due to return from 2027, we cannot pretend the damage of those lost years did not happen. A whole generation of young Scots has grown up knowing their country voted for Europe and was denied it.
That matters. It matters culturally, economically and emotionally.
Some people will say the SNP has damaged the independence cause. They will point to Peter Murrell and say that the behaviour of one former party chief should somehow discredit the whole idea of Scottish self-government.
What happened there was shameful. It deserves criticism. It damaged trust. But one man is not Scotland. One scandal is not a nation. And it is deeply convenient how quickly parts of the British media can use one Scottish political scandal to smear the entire independence movement, while far larger failures at Westminster are treated as background noise.
Look at the Covid PPE scandals. Look at the unlawful VIP lane. Look at billions written off on unusable or devalued equipment. Look at the Test and Trace programme, allocated £37 billion over two years, which parliamentary scrutiny found failed to deliver on its central promise of preventing further lockdowns.
If we are going to talk about waste, corruption, failure and accountability, then let us talk about all of it. Not just the failures that suit a unionist headline.
Because from where many of us are standing, Westminster has no moral high ground left.
Brexit has weakened Britain. It has narrowed horizons. It has made trade harder. It has damaged the economy. It has left Scotland dealing with consequences it did not vote for. The Office for Budget Responsibility has continued to forecast a long-term hit to productivity from Brexit. Scottish Government analysis has warned of billions in long-term damage to Scotland’s economy from new trade barriers.
And through all of this, we are told to be grateful.
Grateful for a union that ignores us. Grateful for decisions made elsewhere. Grateful for a Westminster system that can replace prime ministers whenever it likes, but will not allow Scotland to revisit its own future.
That is not partnership. That is control.
And the saddest thing is that Scotland has so much more to offer the world than this tired, defensive, Westminster-centred version of Britain allows.
Look at how Scotland is seen abroad. Look at the Tartan Army in the United States, in Boston, in New York, in Miami, wherever they go. They do not arrive with arrogance. They arrive with humour, warmth, music, colour and that brilliant Scottish ability not to take ourselves too seriously. They make people fall in love with Scotland, not through government press releases, but through personality.
That is soft power. Real soft power.
Ordinary Scots have done more to show the world who we are than many Westminster ministers ever have. They show a Scotland that is open, funny, kind, passionate and international. A Scotland that belongs in Europe and in the wider world. A Scotland that does not need to be dragged behind a broken British project forever.
I am not saying independence is simple. It is not. There would be hard questions about currency, trade, borders, pensions, public finances and EU membership. Those questions deserve serious answers. But so does the Union.
The Union cannot keep demanding that Scotland prove every detail of independence while Westminster is allowed to fail upwards without consequence.
The Union must answer for Brexit. It must answer for broken promises. It must answer for the democratic deficit that says Scotland can vote one way and be taken another. It must answer for why a referendum held in 2014, before Brexit, before years of Westminster chaos, before the UK left the EU, should still bind Scotland permanently in 2026.
I did not vote Yes the first time.
But I look at Britain now and I find myself thinking something I never expected to think so clearly: Scotland may be better off making its own way.
Not because I hate England. I do not. Not because I think Scotland is perfect. It is not. Not because I believe independence would solve everything overnight. It would not.
But because I believe Scotland deserves the right to choose its own future in light of everything that has happened.
A second referendum is not an unreasonable demand. It is the democratic response to a changed country, a broken promise and a generation of consequences Scotland did not vote for.
If Westminster truly believes Scotland is better off in the Union, it should have the courage to make that case again.
And if it will not allow Scotland to be asked, then perhaps that tells us everything we need to know.
Scotland should be trusted.
Scotland should be respected.
Scotland should be allowed to decide.
magazine.ad
The post If Westminster Can Change Prime Minister Again and Again, Why Can’t Scotland Be Asked Again? appeared first on Edinburgh Magazine – Positive Local News in Edinburgh, Scotland.
