[Music] 200 years ago britain proudly ruled the waves and about a quarter of the world but the british empire has shrunk again and again now the united kingdom itself england scotland wales and northern ireland is weaker than at any point in living memory tensions have flared in northern ireland in the most serious clashes with police for years and in scotland a fierce political battle for independence is in full swing scotland's future must be in scotland's hands the union between england and scotland goes back over 300 years but it's under increasing strain and if scotland were
to go could it pave the way for northern ireland and even wales to do the same at this organic farm outside edinburgh almost all of the produce is proudly grown in scotland and the farm's founder mike thinks scotland would be better off as an independent country it's a hot topic right now as the scottish national party have promised to ask westminster for an independence referendum should they win a majority at the forthcoming election in may my partner's family are from yorkshire and they think of scotland as just another part of england rather than its own
its own country and also you see politicians do that as well they'd be wrong though scotland has a long and proud history as an independent nation the romans never managed to conquer it and for much of its history it was fighting its english neighbors south of the border england had joined with wales in 1536 a union with scotland came about after the queen of england elizabeth the first died in 1603 her cousin james who was king of scotland took over the english throne the two countries now shared a king and an army but had separate
parliaments and laws a few decades later scotland tried to set up a colony new caledonia in what is now panama it was a disaster and scotland was left in serious debt so when a union with england was proposed it looked to some like a sensible financial decision and the acts of union were passed by 1707. some scots looked south of the border and thought that it would be good to have a relationship with this much more powerful richer nation with its bigger market the scots could trade with the english colonies in the caribbean scotland then
was able to trade and tobacco and that was the basis of glasgow's rise in the 18th century ireland was later strong-armed into the union in 1801 but this was short-lived as in 1922 the country was split in two with the irish free state becoming independent and northern ireland remaining part of the uk while the opportunities of empire may no longer exist for members of the union being part of the uk still has its advantages for a start the uk is still scotland's main trading partner 60 of all scottish exports go to the rest of britain
that's almost triple what it exports to the rest of the world excluding europe andy co-runs a brewery outside edinburgh and for him trade with the uk is a compelling reason to stay in the union for us the market in in england has grown in importance it's very easy to sell across the uk no limitations in terms of us traveling into england with independence you will have a land border between england and and scotland and i could see a much more difficult scenario but some have always thought scotland would be better off standing on its own
two feet and by the 1960s a nationalist voice in scottish politics was gaining ground the scottish national party or the snp who won their first seat in westminster in 1967 in the years that followed the nationalist cause received an unexpected boost the discovery of oil off the coast of scotland liquid gold britain now has oil billions and billions of barrels of it and has been quietly laughing at the doorstep all the time in the 1980s oil revenue exploded and many thought scotland should see more of this money which added around 193 billion pounds to the
uk economy between 1975 and 2020 this was coupled with de-industrialization in the 1980s under british prime minister margaret thatcher she was deeply disliked in scotland and this boosted calls for independence in 1997 scotland voted in favor of a devolved parliament which was then created by tony blair britain's prime minister it's every single aerial stop we're all moving forward and we're moving forward together this meant scotland had its own parliament for the first time in nearly 300 years and devolution gave scotland the power to make decisions on areas like agriculture education and health known as devolved
matters while uk-wide concerns such as immigration foreign policy and offence were managed by westminster and were known as reserved matters the uk government still provided financial support to scotland this was in the form of a block grant and together with income tax national insurance payments and other rates from within scotland helped fund the work of the scottish parliament some unionists say scotland couldn't survive without this financial support from westminster because scotland raises less tax and spends more per person than the rest of the uk in 2019 scotland spent 8.6 more than it earned compared with
2.6 for the uk overall but nationalists say if scotland could control its own economic policies it could stimulate growth and help close this gap and some have been fighting hard to prove it the establishment of the holyrood parliament in edinburgh it was believed would see the end of nationalism and that would be enough because scotland would be legislating on scottish issues however that didn't happen because what devolution did was encourage um the nationalists and allowed them to ask for more devolution in 2011 the snp won a majority at hollyrood which gave them a platform to
ask for scottish independence but the referendum that followed was a disappointment for them in 2014 scotland voted to remain in the uk by 55 to 45 percent and that seemed to be the end of that until two years later and brexit the celebration started in the early hours of this morning the uk had voted to get out of the eu in 2016 the uk voted to leave the eu by 52 to 48 but this did not reflect the scottish portion of the vote where 62 voted to remain many scots felt betrayed they were being pulled
out of the european union against their will i think the brexit referendum was a turning point in lots of ways because that massive decision was taken and without the consent of people in scotland that reinforced this idea that maybe the uk couldn't accommodate scotland's distinctive wishes as a nation within the united kingdom back in edinburgh this is certainly how mike feels as something he never voted for has now brought his small business new paperwork and increased costs brexit at the moment is just a disaster i mean i've got about five different customs agents who had
to sign up with a lot of the jargon we don't understand i really cannot see any advantage of brexit and whoever i've spoken to has never given me an answer either so this has helped cement his decision to vote for a party favoring independence at the next election in the hope that there will be a second scottish independence referendum i've got no faith i mean westminster's just proven to be corrupt as far as i'm concerned and i just think it's it's better to be independent and away from that mike's not alone support for independence has
been rising since 2012 but after the brexit vote it overtook support for devolution or remaining partly governed by westminster for nationalists part of the renewed appeal of leaving the uk is that scotland could rejoin the eu as an independent nation but would that mean scotland would be better off possibly not that's because the border between england and scotland would become a border between what's left of britain and the eu and this could potentially disrupt trade with scotland's main trading partner some business people like andy are worried about what independence might mean for trade with the
rest of the uk brexit has already complicated things and he worries that scottish independence could make things even harder i think the only real issue we had recently is just trying to send a box of beer for our online shop to northern ireland which was a right headache there's obviously now much more constrains on the movement back and forth over the irish sea i think that might put people off to go down the route of yes vote on scottish independence but even andy is on the fence about independence and the finer points of trade and
economics may not matter in a debate about national identity because as brexit showed the idea of taking back control is very powerful it is one of the architects of brexit uk prime minister boris johnson who seems to hold a lot of the cards when it comes to independence if the snp were to win a convincing majority at the next scottish election then they could ask for another referendum but they might not be able to hold it that's because as the uk government sees it the law is clear and the british prime minister has to grant
permission for a referendum but mr johnson has made it clear he has no intention of doing this whether the scottish parliament has the legal right to organise a referendum without westminster's permission is a question that has never been tested in court one option may be to just go ahead anyway to try to hold a referendum and so then what then you may be into a situation that catalonia found itself in where it pushed ahead with a referendum that was not seen to be within the legal order of the spanish constitution so you have stalemates whatever
happens the other devolved nations will be watching keenly there are calls in wales for more devolution and northern ireland has the possibility for a referendum on reunification with ireland built into the good friday agreement we are seeing clear tensions emerging within northern ireland it's linked to the implementation of the northern ireland protocol that was part of the uk eu withdrawal agreement the issue in northern ireland is not about independence it's about reunification with the island of ireland now that may be some way off but that's a distinctive issue related also to some of the consequences
of brexit everyone in this debate hopes that if any of the nations of the united kingdom do break away it will be done in a peaceful and orderly way that minimizes damage to the economy but such a neat divorce would have few precedents in the 20th century the breakup of countries usually followed economic chaos decolonization or war the increasing calls for independence could be the most important thing westminster has to manage over the coming years while a breakup of the uk seemed highly unlikely until recently it's now possible that scotland could lead the charge i'm
matthew hallhouse the britain political correspondent at the economist for more about the united kingdom brexit and scotland's future in europe you can read the newspaper's briefing by clicking the link thank you for [Music] watching you
