The streets were half empty on Thursday in Edinburgh, where the traditional New Year’s Eve party “Hogemanay” was canceled due to confinement and Scots face 2021 worried about Brexit, although many expect it to give a new impetus to the independence process.
The Royal Mile shopping street, where typical Scottish produce such as whiskey or tartan, is half-deserted and covered in snow.
The few passers-by expressed concern over the culmination of Brexit as of 11pm GMT on Thursday.
“It’s really sad to leave the European Union, but when it’s over, we will have to push the independence process back,” said Zoe Stewaert, who in 2016 voted to stay in the EU, as they did. make 62% of Scots.
Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, a pro-independence activist, believes Brexit could be an opportunity to increase support for secession.
The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), Sturgeon’s party, is the big favorite for the May 2021 local elections and insists it wants to hold a second self-determination referendum, after the “no” to independence won the referendum held in 2014.
A landslide victory for the SNP in the next elections would increase pressure on London to accept a second referendum, which they have already dubbed “indyref2”.
However, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson strongly opposes this second vote, although his refusal could lead to a political crisis in Scotland.
2021, a decisive year? –
58% of Scots are in favor of breaking with the UK, according to a recent Savanta ComRes poll for the Scotsman newspaper, which reflected a particularly high level of support for independence.
“It is very difficult to detect a trend, as it varies. During the first half of 2020, the thing was 50 to 50. But during the second half (supporters of secession) exceeded 50% and reached 59% “especially for the management of the covid-19 crisis,” explains Nicola McEwan, a professor of political science at the University of Edinburgh.
Sturgeon, with high levels of popularity, took advantage of his pandemic management, much better valued by public opinion than Johnson’s erratic performance during the health crisis.
Mike Blackshaw is already campaigning for secession from his “Yes Cafe,” decorated with a portrait of the prime minister and where pro-independence activists from Edinburgh usually gather.
T-shirts and pins are ready, as is a new pro-independence flag, which mixes the colors of the Scottish banner with those of the EU.
“2021 will be a decisive year for the independence movement,” said hopeful Mike Blackshaw, who has been campaigning for secession for decades.
Blackshaw, with a long white beard, is clear about his desire for “first jogging”, a Scottish tradition that says the symbolic first step after midnight gives good luck: “A referendum in September, win it and then I can live in peace now. “