Case for Scottish independence greater now than ever

The National

20-05-2025

PROFESSOR Robert Black, who was a professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University until his retirement in 2007, has said that in his legal opinion, Scotland was absorbed into England by the Acts of Union of 1707 and as such is not a "partner in a union".
Indeed, in the opinion of Professor Black, the "Union" is merely a political fiction bereft of any substantive meaning. Black likened Scotland's situation post 1707 to that of a corporate 'takeover' rather than a 'merger".
He said that contrary to the prevailing opinion in legal and political circles, Scotland and England did not merge into a new state with the Acts of Union, pointing to the facts that for England nothing much changed after 1707, treaties that the pre 1707 English state had entered into, such as the Treaty of Windsor which the kingdom of England signed with the kingdom of Portugal in 1386, continued to remain in force, whereas treaties signed by the pre 1707 Scottish state were rendered null and void as Scotland had ceased to exist as a state in international law.
Speaking at the Scottish Sovereignty Research Group's conference on Saturday, he said: 'No honest and conscientious lawyer can look at what happened in the first decade of the 18th century to the institutions of government north and south of the Tweed and reach the conclusion that the pre-existing states of Scotland and England both ceased to exist and that a new state emerged, phoenix-like out of the ashes.
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'The evidence, the facts on the ground support no judgment other than that Scotland ceased to exist as a state in international law and was absorbed into a still-extant England, cosmetically renamed 'Great Britain'. Scotland's legal status today, more than three centuries later, is therefore not that of a partner in a union – unequal, perhaps, but a union nevertheless – but is that of territory absorbed into a larger country.
"A territory with only limited self-government and with its resources exploitable and exploited by the larger country for its own benefit and purposes."
He explained that in legal terms, Scotland's legal system was altered while England's remained intact, with the House of Lords becoming Scotland's final court of appeal over its pre-Union equivalent.
He also highlighted a legal opinion by distinguished legal experts Alan Boyle and James Crawford published before the 2014 referendum, which said that in the event of Scottish independence, the remainder of the UK would be the 'successor state' in terms of international treaties.
The Scottish Sovereignty Research Group is associated with an attempt by the organisations Salvo and Liberation Scotland to have the United Nations recognise Scotland as a 'non-self-governing territory' like Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, or Guam. The groups are working with Geneva-based Justice Pour Tous Internationale (Justice for All International) to present Scotland's case to the United Nations.
The Swiss organisation rates as "strong" Scotland's case to be recognised as having colonial status and thus to come under the aegis of the United Nations' special committee on decolonisation. However, the United Nations is very much a creature of the powerful existing states and is highly reluctant to add new territories to the 17 which it currently considers to have colonial status.
An attempt by West Papuan leader Benny Wenda to have the territory's case heard by the special committee on decolonisation was rebuffed in 2017. West Papua was a Dutch colony which was annexed by Indonesia in 1962 despite Dutch attempts to prepare it for independence in its own right.
The population of West Papua are culturally, linguistically, religiously and racially distinct from the rest of the Indonesian population, having far more in common with the people of the independent Papua New Guinea which occupies the eastern half of the massive island of New Guinea. In 1969 Indonesia organised a 'referendum' amongst 1,026 hand-picked village elders who were bribed, threatened and cajoled into voting to ratify the Indonesian annexation.
Since annexation, Indonesia has exploited West Papua's natural resources and embarked upon a campaign of resettling hundreds of thousands of people from the over populated islands of Java and Madura, displacing the native Papuans. Political activity amongst native Papuans is severely repressed by the Indonesian government.
West Papua is unarguably a colony if the word is to have any meaning, nevertheless, the UN's special committee on decolonisation refused to hear a petition signed by 1.8 million West Papuans and smuggled out of the territory. Committee chair Rafael Darío Ramírez Carreño of Venezuela said that the committee could only deal with the 17 states that had already been identified as 'non-self-governing territories' by the UN General Assembly.
As West Papua proves, having a strong, even unimpeachable, case is no guarantee of recognition by the UN as a non-self-governing territory. Given this background, Salvo's and Liberation Scotland's chances of success in presenting Scotland's case to the UN seem slight.
The Conservatives have catastrophically collapsed to fourth place in a major new opinion poll from YouGov, behind Reform UK, Labour, and even the Lib Dems. The poll confirms other recent polling showing that the hard right English nationalist Reform UK is currently surging ahead, at least in England, where Westminster elections are decided. Despite Keir Starmer's Labour party currently being as popular as the BBC executive who cancelled River City, the Tories are not the beneficiaries of Labour's fall from grace. That support is going to the political con trick that is Reform UK, the party of 'anti-elite' millionaires.
(Image: PA)
The YouGov poll of Westminster voting intention puts Reform UK on 29%, Labour on 22%, the Lib Dems on 17% and the Tories on just 16%. Reform UK remains in third place in the poll's Scottish subsample, which puts the SNP on 28%, Labour 19%, Reform UK 18%, Liberal Democrats 15%, Greens 11%, and the Conservatives trailing far behind on just 8%. Neither of the Tories's new leaders, Kemi Badenoch in the UK party or Russell Findlay in Scotland, are able to reverse what increasingly looks like a death spiral for the Conservatives.
According to Electoral Calculus, if the poll were the result in a General Election, the Tories could be reduced to 17 seats while Reform UK would have a majority on 346 seats. The need for Scottish independence is growing increasingly urgent.