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Statehood is again on the agenda in Edinburgh as Brexit raises uncomfortable questions about the very union that defines the U.K. The political divide underscored by the Brexit vote was only reinforced by last month’s elections for the European Parliament. As candidates to become the next British prime minister vow to pull out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal, Scots are confronted with a stark choice: Should they stick with the English and their version of nationalism, or roll the independence dice again?

Nowhere illustrates the dilemma better than the capital. A compact city of some half a million people, Edinburgh was decisive in swaying a previous referendum against independence in 2014. That vote was agreed to by then-Prime Minister David Cameron in a bid to quell separatist sentiment for a generation or more. Two years later, 74% of Edinburgh voters opposed Brexit, the highest margin for “Remain” of any U.K. city. That preference for the status quo looks increasingly untenable for a place with such long-standing European connections and a financial-services industry that stands to suffer post-Brexit.

The north-south divide is visible in the words “second referendum.” In England they signal a rerun of the Brexit vote; in Scotland the meaning is to take another shot at breaking away from the rest of the U.K. The Scottish government, run by the pro-independence Scottish National Party for the past 12 years, reckons it’s just a matter of time before its U.K. counterpart in London has no choice but to sanction another vote. A spokesman for the administration in Edinburgh says the U.K. policy of blocking a repeat of the 2014 referendum will simply prove to be democratically unsustainable.

“There’s a definite shift in independence support,” says Simon Pia, a former communications director for the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament who was involved in the campaign for a “No” vote in 2014. Now a lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University, he’s since switched to the “Yes” camp, largely as a result of what he sees as a growing political and cultural gulf between Scotland and its southern neighbor. While English politics is divided along Brexit lines, the parties in Scotland cleave along pro- or anti-independence lines. Pia says his students now are overwhelmingly for independence, but not necessarily pro-SNP. To them, moving from a devolved Scottish administration to independence is a natural progression, one likely to be accelerated by the election of a pro-Brexit Conservative leader like Boris Johnson, who is yet “more of an alienation” to Scots.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-18/britain-s-next-prime-minister-has-probably-already-lost-scotland