BILLY Connolly says he is changing his mind on the constitutional question and believes independence “may just be the way to go” for Scotland.
In his new book, Made in Scotland, the Big Yin says Brexit and Scotland being taken out of the EU despite overwhelmingly voting to remain, has made him reassess his long held scepticism about walking away from Westminster.
“One thing I’ve never had any interest in is hating England and the English,” he writes.
“I like Thomas Hardy as much as I like Robert Burns. As an Anglophile, I’ve never shouted for Scottish independence — but I might be changing my mind now.”
Connolly adds: “The Brexit vote is a disaster and the breaking up of the togetherness of Europe is a crime bordering on a sin. I think the more people are together, not separate, the happier they will be.
“The most important thing for Scotland is to keep our contact with Europe. Scots voted to stay in Europe, and if the only way for us to do that is to become independent from England, that may just be the way to go. And I never thought I would say that.”
In the run up to the 2014 referendum the Glasgow comedy legend said he tried to keep away from the subject.
He told the BBC: "I don't want to influence anybody so I shut up. I think the Scots will come to a good conclusion in the referendum. They'll get what they deserve."
The former Govan shipyard worker said: "I have never been a nationalist and I have never been a patriot.
"I have always remembered that I have a lot more in common with a welder from Liverpool than I do with someone from agriculture in the Highlands, although I do love them.
"I love Scotland, all its different faces. That's why this referendum thing is so difficult. It's a morass that I care not to dip my toe into."
He was previously critical of devolution, calling the then Scottish Executive a “pretendy wee government in Edinburgh”.
In his book, serialised in the Sunday Times, Connolly talks about his Parkinson’s disease and the impact the illness has had on his life.
The comedian also reveals his last joke, explaining that he’s told his wife, Pamela Stephenson, what he wants on his epitaph.
“My Parkinson’s disease dominates my life to quite a large degree nowadays. It occupies a lot of my thinking time every single day,” he writes.
“When I go into a restaurant, I have to look around and work out where to sit and choose somewhere that it won’t take me a long time to get up from. I sometimes ask the waiter, ‘Listen, I might have trouble getting out of this chair when I have finished eating. Will you hang about and help me?’ They always say yes.”
The LA based funnyman adds: “The thing that I find hardest about Parkinson’s is coming to grips with the fact that it’s never going to go away.”
Connolly tells how he discussed the condition with fellow comic Robin Williams, who had Parkinson’s and killed himself in 2014.
The comic says he wants “to become part of Scotland” when he dies, buried in a wicker casket or a sheet with a tree planted on top.
He has told Stephenson, his epitaph should read “Jesus Christ, is that the time already?”
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