Вызов британской государственности

My name is Mironova Oksana. I'm a student of the 10th class. I would like to introduce my research work. The aim of my work is to find out why Scotland makes attempts to gain economic and political independence of England since the 1990-s to the present. Being a student in a profile social and economic class, I decided to research this question from the historical, economic and political points of view.

On September 18, 2014 in Great Britain a referendum was held during which it was offered to the citizens of GB and European Union who constantly live in Scotland, to answer "yes" or "no" question: Should Scotland be an independent country? Most of inhabitants voted for the union with GB. Unexpected results of the elections were widely published not only in the UK, but also all over the world. The value of this referendum for the world community made me become interested in the question of the independence of this very important part of the UK. I began the research with historical sources about once independent northern state.

Scotland has a rich history which originates to 843. Then the country was connected with England both dynastic marriages, and serious military conflicts, reasons of which were claim for lands and the throne. As a result Jacob VI united two crowns, and later two countries became one Kingdom. It meant the refusal of the Scottish parliament and deprivation of its independence. Old offenses did not allow the Scots to agree with it that's why revolts arose with the purpose to return their own monarch. When life became better and the national economy started to develop, two peoples, at last, began to coexist peacefully together. And this situation would not change, if not the fact which set the Scots thinking about the economic sovereignty: in the twentieth century in the territory of Scotland in the North Sea oil was found. There was a question: «Whose oil is it?". It became the reason of holding a referendum 1997 about the return of the Scottish parliament and the first step to an economic and political freedom from the English parliament.

It should be noted that today all over the world we can see a difficult political situation when people living in different countries and cities gain to separation from the state for freedom. In the light of these events in the autumn of the last year in England a new referendum was held which had to resolve a serious issue - disintegration of the UK that exited the whole world and set many people thinking of the reasons and consequences of adoption of this decision. I chose this question as a subject of the work and conducted my own research.

Based on the aim I needed to solve the following tasks:

1 To collect and study material on the subject interesting for me.

2 To study the historical past of Scotland before association with England.

3. To analyze the reasons of holding referenda and their results.

4. To try to predict possibility of political and economic freedom of Scotland, relying on opinion of the experts and politicians.

So, investigating this subject, I came to following conclusions:

1. In a root of the existing problem there is a historical past of two countries filled with collisions and political conflicts: residents of Scotland couldn't trust the English, who thought about how to use their new lands and resources more favorably.

3. The parliament had to acquire a partial financial autonomy and the right to dispose of finance from oil income. As a result Scotland received the parliament.

3. On the one hand, according to the estimates of experts, benefit of Scotland will make 600 million dollars if the country stops to share the income from oil with England, but except oil in Scotland there is a developed electronic industry, shipbuilding, fishery, a large base of submarines and other military facilities. The income is also brought in by tourism and production of well-known whisky. It turns out economically Scotland has the big income and can exist independently.

On the other hand, the English industry is developed better. Scotland has a risk to lose grants from London and to get "a hole" in the budget about 11 billion pounds in size. These powerful arguments led to the referendum of 2014 and that's why most of the Scots voted against independence of the country.

In spite of the failure of "Yes" company, Alex Salmond believes that Scotland has a chance to become independent. But because of the results he stopped being the head of the SNP (Scottish National Party).

The Prime Minister of the UK David Cameron expresses his opinion about the crown optimistic. He promises to enlarge the rights of the Scottish Parliament and shows how much he is glad about the UK has the same members.

4. In my opinion, Scots aren't ready for a detachment from the UK now. If Scotland found independence in the autumn of the last year, it would be in a very difficult economic situation now, having lost a pound as currency at the unstable dollar and euro rate. The autonomy of Scotland is possible in the future, but at the moment the national party should use the situation to think about their strategy, to understand the reasons of failures, to strengthen production of the region, to resolve an issue with dependence on English pound and to correct all mistakes made in the company of 2014. Then despite every "but", Scotland will have high chances for safe and, above all independent existence.