There are three defensible answers, depending on how strict you want to be. Let’s have a look at all three, from hard legal to modern democratic. 1. It was born illegitimate This is the uncomfortable one Westminster never wants examined. Why? Because in 1707: - There was no popular consent - No referendum - No mandate - Widespread public opposition in Scotland - MPs were bribed, pressured, or financially dependent - Protests were suppressed, not heeded By any modern definition of legitimacy: - The people were never asked - The decision was elite-driven - Consent was assumed, not given So strictly speaking: The Union did not become illegitimate. It never was legitimate in the first place. It was legal under elite-controlled law, but illegitimate by democratic standards. 2. It became illegitimate when democracy arrived This is the argument even moderates can’t dodge. Once democracy becomes the basis of authority, ongoing consent becomes mandatory. Key shift: - The UK evolves into a parliamentary democracy - The moral basis of rule changes from “Crown + Parliament” to “people” At that moment, something critical happens: An agreement made without the people now requires their consent to continue. But Scotland was never re-asked. No ratification. No renewal. No mechanism to withdraw. From that point onward, the Union survives not on consent — but on inertia. That’s when legitimacy starts decaying. 3. It became illegitimate the moment Scotland voted to leave and was told “no” This is the cleanest, most devastating argument. You don’t even need history for this one. In a modern democracy: - If a people express a sustained, majority desire to leave - And are blocked from doing so - The governing structure loses legitimacy immediately Why? Because consent has been explicitly withdrawn. At that point, the Union stops being a union and becomes: - A constraint - A containment - A control structure Legality may continue.

Foundational Principle All political authority derives from the ongoing consent of the governed. Consent is not permanent. It must be renewable, withdrawable, and respected. Definition of a Union A union is legitimate only while all constituent peoples: - Entered freely - Continue freely - Can leave freely If exit is denied, the union ceases to be voluntary. Failure of Origin The 1707 Union was formed without popular consent. It was an agreement between elites, enacted through financial pressure and parliamentary control, not democratic will. Failure of Renewal As democracy replaced crown sovereignty, the moral basis of authority shifted to the people. The Union was never re-ratified by Scotland under democratic standards. Failure of Continuance When a people express a sustained desire to reconsider or withdraw from a political arrangement and are blocked from doing so, consent is withdrawn. Authority persists only through force of law and institutional inertia. Illegitimacy by Inertia A system that survives only because it is difficult to dismantle, rather than because it is actively chosen, has lost democratic legitimacy. The Union lacks: - Democratic origin - Democratic renewal - Democratic continuance Therefore, whatever its legal status, it no longer possesses moral or democratic authority.

Gleichschaltung Gaslight “The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” — George Orwell, 1984 Orwell’s warning was not about memory alone, but power. When a people lose ownership of their past, they lose the vocabulary to describe what’s happening to them. Their world can be rewritten without their consent. The map is still there, but the names have changed. In Germany, the process was called Gleichschaltung, literally “same circuit.” It was the term used by the Nazi regime to describe the synchronisation of all institutions under one ideology: the economy, education, culture, sport, press, and even thought. Everything that once had independent rhythm was re-tuned to a single frequency. The word sounds foreign, but the concept should not. Scotland, too, experienced its own form of “same circuiting.” Not with the jackboot, but with the handshake; not with a dictator, but with a deal. The Soft Machinery of Control The early eighteenth century found Scotland weakened but not conquered. The catastrophic failure of the Darien Scheme (1698–1700) had left the nation in financial ruin and humiliation. Westminster’s offer of union came wrapped in the language of rescue, salvation through partnership. But this partnership was conditional: Scotland could retain its church and legal system, yes, but not its autonomy over trade, foreign policy, or currency. Sovereignty was diluted and replaced with the promise of shared greatness. It was, in effect, an early exercise in political Gleichschaltung: every lever of power wired into a British circuit, humming to London’s frequency. The deal was sold as unity, but operated as absorption. The Rewriting of the Record In the decades following the Union of 1707, Scotland’s historical narrative was gradually redrafted to fit a British frame. The Scottish Wars of Independence were recast as prelude rather than principle, as stepping stones to a “greater” British destiny. Wallace and Bruce, once embodiments of constitutional defiance, were turned into romantic rebels; their wars reinterpreted as youthful quarrels before the mature marriage of nations.

Everyone knows the picture history painted for us. Tartan & Flags snapping in the wind, a desperate charge across the moor, and the inevitable defeat that supposedly proved Scotland’s rebellion was doomed from the start. The word Jacobite has been filed away beside words like romantic, futile, misguided. What almost no one asks is what came before Culloden - the slow erasure of a nation’s ability to fight back. By the middle of the eighteenth century, Scotland had already spent two centuries resisting absorption. From the Rough Wooing to the Darien disaster, every generation had faced a choice between submission or punishment. When persuasion failed, policy hardened into removal: leaders executed, sympathisers imprisoned, families cleared from their land or shipped to colonies as indentured labour. Long before the British bayonets lined up at Drummossie Moor, Scotland’s capacity for resistance had been deliberately dismantled. After the failed Union negotiations of the 1690s, the independent trading venture at Darien was strangled through English interference; its collapse bankrupted much of the country. The debt relief offered in exchange for signing the 1707 Act of Union was not partnership - it was ransom. When riots broke out across Scottish towns, they were written down in London as disturbances rather than acts of national protest. The men who refused the treaty were marked for treason; many would later reappear in the gaols of 1715 and 1745. Between those years, the British government did what empires do best: it made sure that when the next uprising came, it would already have its outcome decided. Garrisons were built along the Great Glen; weapons were banned; clan leaders watched, exiled, or executed; Gaelic stripped from schools; loyalty purchased with confiscated estates. By 1745, the rising that Charles Edward Stuart led was not the reckless adventure of a few romantic highlanders, it was the final act of a people who had already been hunted, weakened, and silenced.

History’s Already Told Us What Happens Next We know what the British Empire is capable of. We’ve seen its playbook, century after century, across half the planet. It conquers, it claims, it extracts. And when a place wants to leave, it doesn’t just let go… it rebrands the fight for freedom as rebellion. It talks of “restoring order,” “preserving stability,” “protecting interests.” But what it really means is control. They didn’t fight to keep colonies because they loved their people. They fought to keep the ports, the oil, the trade routes, the power. The empire’s moral compass has always spun toward profit. And yet we pretend not to see the pattern when it’s us. We act like Scotland’s case is somehow different. Like this time, they’ll be reasonable. Like they’ll just let go when we ask nicely. But they won’t. They never have. The empire doesn’t give up wealth willingly, it waits until holding on costs more than letting go. That’s the only thing that ever ends its grip. So when people say, “They’ll never let Scotland go,” they’re not wrong… not yet. Because as long as we’re useful as a profit stream, as a nuclear base, as political cover… they’ll fight to keep us. And they’ll dress it up the same way they always have: “unity,” “security,” “national interest.” History has already shown us what comes next. When control slips, they tighten their grip. When people stand up, they’re called insurgents. And when the truth threatens the narrative, it’s buried under ceremony, distraction, and spin. But the empire’s mask is slipping. We see the pattern now, not as outsiders, but as the last colony still pretending it isn’t one. So the real question isn’t why won’t they let us go? It’s how long will we keep asking permission from those who never needed it themselves? Because nobody hands you freedom… You build it. You plan it. You stand together long enough and strong enough that walking away stops looking like rebellion and starts looking like inevitability.