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Scexit: What If Scotland Becomes Independent From The United Kingdom?
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Mar 31, 2025
In 2014, Scotland held a referendum on whether it would go it alone as an independent country, or stay within the United Kingdom. Ultimately, people within Scotland voted to stay with the UK, but that was before the UK opted to leave the European Union. As such, politicians in Scotland are feeling like a second referendum is appropriate. So what if Scotland becomes independent today?
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In 2014, Scotland held a referendum on independence that ultimately failed, if only narrowly
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But while Scotland opted to remain with the United Kingdom, only two years later, the
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United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union. As such, there have been renewed calls for Scotland to leave the UK and rejoin the European Union
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So what if Scotland became independent today? Hello and welcome to What If Geography, where we try and answer the great geographic what-if
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questions of the world. I'm your host, Jeff Gibson, and today we're going to talk about
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Scotland. If you've been watching British news lately, you might have seen some news
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articles about another vote for independence. While it looks like Scotland might not get
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their wish this time, the idea of an independent Scotland isn't going away anytime soon
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But before we get into what an independent Scotland might look like, if you enjoy my YouTube channel, be sure to check out the podcast of the same name
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In it, we take much deeper dives into the same subjects that you love
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And you can listen to the podcast right here on YouTube under its own channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts
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Links are in the description below. Scotland and England have a long and complicated history with each other
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Going all the way back to the period of time when the Romans created a province out of what
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is today mostly modern-day England. The Romans even built a wall to keep out the barbarian
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Gaelic peoples in modern-day Scotland from being able to invade Roman England. But while ancient
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history is important, it's not until after the year 1000 that things really get interesting
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You see, Scotland has traditionally always been an independent kingdom. However, in the late 1200s
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the death of Scottish King Alexander III broke the line of succession which spread chaos in the
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country. English King Edward I arbitrated between various claimants and ultimately selected a
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Scottish king who would surrender Scottish independence to England. Eventually, King Edward
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would take ownership of Scotland entirely. This is primarily what led to the Scottish Wars of
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Independence, wherein Scotland attempted to regain independence through multiple wars and revolts
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And in the year 1314, Scotland became an independent kingdom once again. Fast forward a few hundred
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years and many, many, many more events in between, and a completely opposite scenario emerges for the
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British Islands. In 1603, Scottish King James VI inherited both the Kingdom of England and the
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Kingdom of Ireland. This would eventually lead to one of the most pivotal moments in British history
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the signing of the Acts of Union which formally bound Scotland and England together as a single country Notably the Kingdom of Ireland submitted proposals to be added to the Acts of Union but were repeatedly denied But that a whole other story The rest is as we say history The term United Kingdom became official in 1801
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when the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland each passed a new Acts of Union, which finally added Ireland to the two kingdoms and created the United Kingdom of Great Britain
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and Ireland. But Scotland maintained its own culture and identity well after the formal union
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In fact, the Scottish Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution turned Scotland into an intellectual
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commercial, and industrial powerhouse. So much so that famous French philosopher Voltaire once said
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We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization. And it's for this reason that Scotland wanting independence once again is really not all
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that surprising. Beginning in the early 1920s, Scotland began openly expressing a desire for greater degree
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of independence from England. But it wasn't until the Scottish National Party gained enough power within Parliament
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in the 1970s that it was able to pressure the current Labour government into creating a serious
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proposal for Scottish self-government. This ultimately led to the formation of a Scottish
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Parliament in 1998 and further autonomy from the larger UK government. But that still wasn't enough
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for some in Scotland. With the Scottish National Party firmly in control of the Scottish Parliament
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it was inevitable that a formal referendum would be held on whether Scotland would break away from
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the United Kingdom entirely. In 2014, the Scottish people ultimately voted to stay within the United
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Kingdom, but that was before the British people voted to then leave the European Union
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It's worth noting here that largely the Scottish and Northern Irish voted to remain, but their
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hands were bound to the English who voted to leave. And since England has many times more people than Scotland and Northern Ireland combined
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they didn't really have much of a choice in the matter. Today, Scotland is feeling once again like independence should be placed back in front
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of the people. Meanwhile, the British Parliament is adamantly opposed to it despite the radical changes
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the UK has undergone over the last eight years. But before we dive into what an independent Scotland might look like
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if you're enjoying this video, now would be a great time to subscribe. More fun what-if geography videos are just a single click away
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If Scotland actually did become independent, it would have a lot to figure out in a relatively short period of time
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At this point, Scotland has been wed to the United Kingdom for so long that it's really difficult to separate them
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Luckily, because there was a recent referendum where Scotland had a strong chance of actually becoming independent
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Much of this has already been discussed. For starters, an independent Scotland wouldn't necessarily feel all that different
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from the Scotland of today for multiple reasons. Chief amongst them was that the Scottish National Party was in favor of remaining within
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what was called the Common Travel Area That allows for free passportless movement between the UK and Ireland If Scotland became independent there likely wouldn be any new passport checks between England and Scotland
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Unless, of course, Scotland opted to loosen its passport controls with other countries
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such as by joining the Schengen Zone, which allows for passportless travel throughout Europe
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In which case, the UK's Prime Minister at the time suggested that stricter border controls would be implemented
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Additionally, given that Scottish people don't always live in Scotland these days, but rather have moved all over the UK and the world at large
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An independent Scotland would need to figure out who is a citizen and who is not
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In which case, as part of the 2014 referendum, it was proposed that anyone born in Scotland would be automatically given citizenship
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as well as any British citizen that has habitually resided within Scotland
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From there, it got a little tighter. Those with parents or grandparents born in Scotland could apply for citizenship
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as well as those who had lived within Scotland for a period of 10 years. Overall, Scotland was proposing a rather liberal policy towards citizenship
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The UK, on the other hand, remained non-committal towards Scots being able to gain UK citizenship
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regardless of whether they lived in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland. And of course, in terms of defense, an independent Scotland would have a lot to decide on
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For one, the Scottish National Party has historically been against joining NATO
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and being the home of a series of nuclear weapons that belong to NATO
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However, in recent years, the Scottish National Party has relaxed its views a bit around this
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Still, the question remains, does Scotland join NATO or go it alone defensively
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But while there are plenty of other policy decisions an independent Scotland would have to make
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perhaps the biggest questions would revolve around the economy. Becoming an independent country is not a cheap affair
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and while Scotland today enjoys a status few others enjoy in the world, due to its current association with the United Kingdom as a whole
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an independent Scotland would not have the same luxury. Chief amongst the issues would be whether Scotland's corporate employers
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would stay within a newly independent country or abandon ship. In 2014, the Weir Group, one of Scotland's largest private employers
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conducted a study on the impact Scottish independents would have on their business. In it, they found that they would not be able to operate successfully in an independent Scotland
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Another corporation, Standard Life, began registering its companies in England leading up to the vote
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just in case Scotland did become independent. All this is to say, an independent Scotland would have a rough go of it economically
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but it does have one ace up its sleeve, its natural resources. Scotland, like Norway, has a huge amount of oil sitting off its northern coast
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At present, there's estimated to be about 24 billion barrels of oil that could be extracted
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from the North Sea oil reserves. At the time of this video being published the price of oil was roughly per barrel which means Scotland would potentially have trillion at its disposal For a country of 5 million people that would equate to about
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$330,000 per person if it was spread out evenly. That's not a terrible nest egg, aside from the
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inherent climate change issues. Finally, an independent Scotland would also have to figure
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out what currency it would use. At present, Scotland uses the British pound sterling
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but an independent Scotland would have a choice to make. Create its own currency, retain the pound sterling, or adopt the euro
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With its own currency, Scotland would have full control over its monetary policies
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But the creation of a currency is complicated and, unfortunately, quite expensive
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If it retained the pound sterling, there would be a little bureaucratic changes and it would be far more convenient
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for a population that is already using it. But Scotland would also continue to be dependent on the UK
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which kind of defeats the purpose. And of course, Scotland could adopt the euro
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which is the common currency of the European Union. But that would be predicated on one very important thing
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Scotland joining the European Union, which is not a guarantee. The Scottish National Party has been pretty adamant that Scotland should and will join the European Union
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However, it's not an automatic entry and it's definitely not a guarantee that this would happen
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And now that the United Kingdom has formally left the United Union, an independent Scotland would need to apply for entry under Article 49
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which explicitly requires that each member state would need to ratify Scotland's application
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And therein lies the big problem, because there's one country that would absolutely not want Scotland to join
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due to the precedent it might create. Spain. Spain, like the UK, is really more of a combination of smaller countries that formed into one
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Broadly, Spain is broken up into regions that have historically had their own national identity
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And one of those regions is very similar to Scotland, Catalonia. Catalonia, the home of Barcelona, has tried numerous times to formally break away from Spain
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And while it hasn't happened yet, Spain absolutely does not want to set precedent by allowing a breakaway country entry into the
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European Union when it could very well be used against them in the future. So while Scotland
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might want to be in the European Union, and the UK no longer has any say in who gets to be in the
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European Union, there are still other forces at play for why an independent Scotland may have to
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be fully independent, at least for a little while. It's clear Scotland does not prefer England
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charting its path in global affairs. But breaking away from the United Kingdom is also a risky
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endeavor. If Scotland does formally break away from the UK, it should be prepared to weather some
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very tough early years, just as any new country would have to. I hope you enjoyed learning about
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what an independent Scotland might look like. If you did, please subscribe to my channel. And if
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you want to watch more of my videos, you can do so here. Thanks for watching. See you next time
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