Home » United Kingdom » Underground Independence

The 300th anniversary of the union between Scotland and England will fall this year. I am the first to admit that my understanding of both the history and intricacies of the United Kingdom is appallingly limited- but I must admit that I never thought that my first trip to Scotland would see me wondering whether there would be a subsequent three hundred years of unity between England and their northerly neighbour. In 1707 there were allegations of bribery, corruption and (obvious) disenfranchisement after the noblemen in the Scottish Parliament agreed to the Union with the Kingdom of England. Nowadays the Scots are more represented than ever - they have had their own Scottish Parliament since 1998, they are still represented in the Parliament of Great Britain in London and for all intents and purposes the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will almost definitely be a Scot - yet if you believe media reports the desires of the Scottish population to assert their differences compared with England and leverage themselves into an “independent” Scotland seem very strong.

Underground Independence

Patrick Gatland
2007-03-08 18:14:21

Displayed times (last time: )

Princes Street it was hard not to be impressed as the imposing figure of Edinburgh Castle looms over you and in the distance Arthur's Seat strikes a dramatic background. Steve joked that he often told holidaying Americans that Edinburgh officials "build the castle each summer when the tourists arrive and pack it away again as winter approaches". I groaningly appreciated how many of my beloved Americans believed him.

We were on a (slow, halting) mission to make our way to the new Scottish Parliament in Holyrood on the other side of Edinburgh from our apartment and on the way I had noticed the abundance of Scottish flags flying. Proudly Scottish, I asked Steve what he thought of all the recent talk about making Scotland independent again. He told me how he knew that many people in Scotland greatly favoured severing ties with England but he could not see the point of any move toward independence. He pointed out that although there was a devolved parliament all the real power still is at Westminster and that the Scottish Parliamentarians did "nothing". To Steve, the only thing more worrying than the high percentage of Scots polled who said they wanted to break from the Union was the even higher rates in polls of English respondents who said that they would be happy to get rid of Scotland altogether. It seemed in Steve's view that independence would be bad for Scotland as it cannot afford to be separate from its neighbour. (Meanwhile throughout this conversation poor old Jill was having her own, more internal debate, which involved questions of will and strength and whether she should have tucked into that fourth bottle of wine the night before.)

We never made it to the new Scottish Parliament building as along the way we decided to take in something even more representative of Scotland - a terrifying ghost tour in the underground vaults of Edinburgh. The vaults, as far as I can ascertain from the limited historical information (of use) I received on ...