Scotland May Go its Own Way

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2 May LA Times - Scotland May Go its Own Way by Kim Murphy.

... This week, Scotland and England celebrate the 300th anniversary of their union under the treaty that ultimately created the United Kingdom. But the SNP, capitalizing on widespread dissatisfaction with the 10-year-old Labor government in London and overwhelming opposition to the war in Iraq, is vowing to try to end the union if it wins, pledging to seek a referendum on independence by 2010.

Party leaders are waving the prospect of seizing billions of dollars of North Sea oil revenue and turning this hilly region of 5 million people into a prosperous and independent northern European state, like Norway and Finland, with England as a neighbor within the European Union.

Enough Scots are buying it — recent polls show the SNP ahead — that leaders of both the Labor and Conservative parties are pulling out the stops and combing Scotland to convince voters that they are citizens of Britain first...

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5 May NY Times - Scottish Nationalists Upset Labor in Elections by Alan Cowell.

In a historic reversal, the separatist Scottish National Party emerged Friday as the biggest political grouping in Scotland, ending 50 years of dominance there by the governing Labor Party and redrawing Britain’s political landscape.

The result was the most startling among a series of regional votes across Britain on Thursday, as Prime Minister Tony Blair began a long and choreographed farewell to British politics. The outcome represented a sharp rebuke to Mr. Blair and a troubled, embarrassing debut for Gordon Brown, a Scot who is expected to become Britain’s next prime minister...