As Scotland’s electorate approaches the Sept. 18 vote on independence, Robert Travers, associate professor of History at Cornell University, predicts that the Scottish electorate may vote for independence after all.
Travers says:
“Will Scotland vote for ‘independence’ on September 18? Recent polls suggest the Scottish electorate may spring a surprise and vote for independence after all. Why is this? “In part, the apparent surge may reflect a widespread popular disillusionment with politics as usual and the old political establishment. Like the right-wing UK Independence Party, the left-wing Scottish Nationalists may be benefitting from a general sense voter dissatisfaction in hard economic times. “But there may also be another factor in the narrowness of the polls: confusion on all sides about what independence, or staying in the UK, will actually mean. The debate over Scotland’s future has shown that the meanings of ‘independence’ in the modern world are not so clear.
“Whichever way the vote goes, this will only be the start of a long negotiation between the Scottish parliament, the UK government, and the European Union, about how Scotland will be governed in the future.”
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