This Week's Scottish Elections May Decide the Future of the United Kingdom

Scottish parliamentary elections will be held this week and, as usual, independence is the central issue although the pandemic and the economy will also influence the outcome. Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party [SNP] hopes to win a majority on Thursday and force another referendum to end the 314-year union with the United Kingdom. SNP needs just four more seats to capture control of 65 in the 129-seat parliament and force Boris Johnson to allow another vote on independence.

SNP and Scottish nationalists narrowly lost an independence vote in 2014, but that was before Brexit which most Scots opposed. Boris Johnson's handling of the pandemic has also come under attack and he has never been very popular in Scotland. Recent opinion surveys show that a majority of Scots would now vote to leave the United Kingdom and rejoin the European Union, but the polls are close.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that it's too soon for another independence referendum, but many observers believe he will have to back down if SNP wins a majority or be seen as blocking Scottish self-determination.

The Guardian: "At the SNP’s manifesto launch on Thursday, Sturgeon said: “If there is a simple, democratic majority in the Scottish parliament for an independence referendum, there will be no democratic, electoral or moral justification whatsoever for Boris Johnson or anyone else to block the right of people in Scotland to decide their own future.”

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By: Don Lam & Curated Content