Scotland, the UK and Brexit - at a constitutional crossroads: what next for Scotland?

Since 2014, the constitutional future of the United Kingdom (UK) has been in a state of almost permanent flux. In the space of two years, the Scottish electorate went twice to the polls to vote on referenda on hugely significant constitutional issues. On 18 September 2014, a record number of voters (circa 85%) voted in an independence referendum in which 55% of the electorate voted ‘no’ to the question ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ Almost two years later, the Scots were at the polls again, this time for a state-wide referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union (EU). In this referendum, 62% of voters in Scotland voted to remain in the EU. However, the Scottish vote to remain was trumped by the overall UK-wide result in which just under 52% of the electorate chose to leave the EU. As has been pointed out elsewhere, ‘Brexit was made in England’.

No sooner had the UK Government fired the starting gun on its lengthy and complicated negotiations to secure the UK’s exit from the EU than the Scottish Government called for a second referendum on Scottish independence. In Wales, Labour and Plaid Cymru worked together to produce a co-authored White Paper calling for continued membership of the European Single Market, while Sinn Fein’s strong performance in the March 2016 Stormont elections and the 2020 Irish elections has increased focus on a border poll on Irish reunification. Added to these conflicting and at times diametrically opposing visions for the constitutional future of Scotland and the UK, both countries find themselves at a constitutional crossroads: In leaving one union, the future of the other remains in the balance.
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the constitutional debate in the UK vis-à-vis Scotland and the future of the UK union. We take stock of this debate in the post-referendum period, and look at what next for Scotland in the light of the Scottish government’s push for a second independence referendum.