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This article explores the multifaceted connections between the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014 and the United Kingdom’s Referendum on membership of the European Union in 2016. It considers the implications for the United Kingdom of the historical evolution of Scottish attitudes to the British and European Unions. We examine the stark divergence between England and Scotland in terms of political allegiance and political culture, which reached an unprecedented level in the 2015 Westminster General Election. Scotland’s unsettled constitutional future in the British Union was not resolved by the No vote in the 2014 Independence Referendum, but has been thrown into further doubt by the upcoming vote on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union. This has been made obvious by the large gap between Scottish and English attitudes to the European Union, as Scotland is considerably less Eurosceptic than England overall. In order to explain this, we discuss the deep history of Scotland’s bonds with Europe (which have been increasingly revived since the 1980s). The article examines historical changes and continuities between the 1975 European Referendum and the debate in 2016. We conclude by discussing the likely outcome of the 2016 Referendum. Whilst we cannot be certain of the result, especially as current polls are in a statistical dead heat, we can judge safely that the profound links between the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and the 2016 European Union membership Referendum reveal some of the most important historical forces that have shaped and will continue to shape the relationships between Scotland and the other nations of the United Kingdom.
