WHAT’S THE STORY?
ACCORDING to some Unionists, Scotland is alone among the nations of the world in wanting to break away from their imperial masters – sorry, their equal partners in a successful Union.
Here’s a short list of territories where there are movements for secession, independence or greater autonomy in Europe alone: Flanders and Wallonia in Belgium; the Croatian area of Bosnia-Herzegovina; Moravia in the Czech Republic; Bornholm and the Faroes in Denmark; Aland in Finland; the Basque Country, Brittany, Corsica, Provence and Occitania in France, and many many more in Spain, Germany and elsewhere. Oh, and even in England there are Cornish people wanting out, or at least to have a bigger say in their own future.
The European Free Alliance in the European Parliament recognises 46 separate peoples all seeking self-determination, and in every continent bar Antarctica there are movements of peoples wanting to to break away and set up on their own.
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WHO IS THE CLOSEST TO CHOOSING?
GIVEN the Parliamentary mandate we have, Scotland is right up there among the nations which will get the chance to vote for independence soon, but two peoples on islands in the Pacific will shortly get the chance to vote on breaking away from their current arrangement and become independent. One of them even has a Scottish-related name.
NEW CALEDONIA?
A THIRD indyref is now due on this Pacific island which is a “special collectivity” of France but where many of the majority local Kanak people have been agitating for independence for decades.
In 1987, many Kanaks boycotted the first indyref so that the result – overwhelming rejection of independence – did not reflect the reality.
New Caledonia continued to be politically split and in the Noumea Accord of 1998, France promised an independence referendum on condition of “political stability” for 20 years before any further votes on independence.
That duly triggered the second indyref in 2018 where the result was 56.4% for maintaining the status quo and 43.6% in favour of independence. – very similar to our own indyref in 2014, and with a similar turnout too – 81% of the 174,995 voters eligible to vote did so.
The Noumea Accord allowed for a third indyref in 2020 if more than a third of the country’s MPs voted for it, so there will be an independence referendum in New Caledonia on September 6.
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If that fails to gain independence for the country, they can have another go in 2022 to join the 100-plus other countries that have become independent since the United Nations was formed after the Second World War. And they could soon be followed by Chuuk.
CHUUK?
ONE of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia, some 600-plus islands spread across the Western Pacific, Chuuk has been agitating to leave Micronesia for some years.
Chuuk is the most populous state of Micronesia and has the country’s biggest tourist attraction Chuuk Lagoon. Chuuk independence campaigners say their state doesn’t get its fair share of resources. The referendum is now scheduled for March.
ANYBODY ELSE?
YES California is a movement dedicated to seceding from the USA. They say they were inspired by our own Yes campaign in 2014 and argue that California is on a different political path to the rest of the States. They have little chance of success as American law apparently doesn’t allow individual states to secede.
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