15 September 2020 - Scotland backs independence from UK by 53%
Independence ‘the only way to protect Holyrood’ says SNP as poll has Yes on 53%
Scott Macnab (The Scotsman, 12/09/2020)
Constition Secretary Michael Russell spoke out yesterday on the 23rd anniversay of the devolution referendum to bring about the creation of the Scottish Parliament, which coincided with a Survation poll which shows 53 per cent in favour of breaking with the Union, with 47 per cent against.
It backs up the findings of a number of polls since the start of the year which show a majority of people in Scotland back independence.
How the Covid crisis is changing minds on Scottish independence
Libby Brooks (The Guardian, 13/09/2020)
It was at the height of Scotland’s lockdown that it struck Henry most profoundly that the union was obsolete. A traditional Labour voter in his late 40s from a unionist family, he watched as the disorienting, dumbfounding news of the pandemic scrolled across his TV screen and realised that the bonds of the UK seemed “no longer fit for purpose”.
As the crisis progressed, Henry says, he was “appalled by the arrogance of the Westminster elite, in particular the behaviour of Dominic Cummings”. He compares this to the conduct of Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. “I’ve never been a supporter of the SNP or a massive advocate for Sturgeon, but when she appeared on those daily briefings there was an honesty that shone through. I’m not naive, I know how politicians operate, but I felt she showed a down-to-earth empathy.” He also felt Sturgeon, unlike Boris Johnson, was in command of the situation.
Ewan McGregor gives his backing to Scottish independence
Stephen Mcilkenny (Glasgow Times, 13/09/2020)
Ewan McGregor has shifted his support from No to Yes as he backed Scottish independence in a recent interview stating that “it’s time” for Scotland to break away from the UK.
The Trainspotting actor, despite having previously backed Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom said that the Brexit vote changed his mind.
In an interview, he told of how he was shooting Trainspotting 2 on the result night of the EU referendum in 2016 and that seeing the map post-vote demonstrated to him how Scotland and England were going in “different directions” politically.
Are the wheels coming off the independence bandwagon?
Struan Stevenson (The Herald Scotland, 12/09/2020)
If you stand outside Bute House this weekend you may hear a strange hissing noise. It is the sound of air escaping from the SNP’s over-inflated case for Scottish independence. First came the devastating Government Revenue & Expenditure in Scotland (GERS) figures showing how Scotland spent £15.1 billion more last year than it collected in tax, a GDP deficit of 8.7 per cent. Add to that the collapse in oil revenues and the looming mega-recession caused by the pandemic and suddenly the economic case for independence begins to reveal more holes than a Swiss cheese. When leading nationalist and former Holyrood minister Alex Neil advises the SNP to drop its plans for an independent Scotland to re-join the EU stating that it could: “lead to a hard border between Scotland and England, a proposition that would scupper any realistic chance of winning a second independence referendum”, then the wheels really do fall off the nationalist bandwagon.