Just seven years ago Scotland voted in a referendum
to stay part of the United Kingdom.
But today, that union is in doubt as never before.
Join me on a journey across Scotland
to find out why Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic
are straining UK unity, and why so many Scots have
turned towards independence.
We start on the River Tweed, the ancient border
between England and Scotland.
Farewell to all our Scottish fame.
Farewell, our ancient glory.
Farewell, even to our Scottish name,
sae fam'd in martial story.
Now Sark runs over the Solway sands,
and Tweed runs to the ocean.
To mark where England's province stands,
such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
This poem, by Robert Burns, expressed the anxiety
that many Scots felt, that their 1707 union with England
would lead to the loss of Scotland's separate identity.
For centuries such anxieties seemed misplaced.
In recent years, however, many Scots
have turned against the Union.
In 2020, opinion polls showed a sustained lead
for ending the three-century Union with England.
Support for independence has since slipped back,
but the country appears nearly evenly divided
on the constitutional question.
If Scotland was to become independent, then
join the EU as the governing Scottish National party plans,
this section of the Tweed would be transformed
into a hard economic border.
It is a prospect that dismays many who live in the area.
There's Scotland here.
River Tweed on my right hand side.
The middle of the river is the border.
And the land found on the other side, which is England.
You're looking over to the Cheviot
Hills in the distance, which, again, is back in Scotland.
Colin McGregor farms on both sides of the border,
and says any impediment to travel or trade
would be emotionally and economically damaging.
We don't regard this as a border.
It's just another area of the UK and Scottish borders,
north of Northumberland.
And life is just intermingled and mixed together.
We just understand the problems that we
would have if there was a border, and you know,
we're all very sensible, and common sense
dictates that it would be very hard to live with.
Leaving the border behind, we had for Glasgow,
Scotland's most populous city.
Where I'm hoping to find out why a large majority of those
aged between 16 and 24 want to leave the UK.
A majority of young people these days are sort of looking
towards as...
I think it's a sort of...
it's a sort of wonder of, if it was
to happen, like, what outcomes would we see happen,
and what changes would we see be made?
Not all young people want to end the Union.
It just doesn't make sense.
If it's not broken, don't break it.
It just feels like...
the Union works.
And it works because we get all the benefits, we get security.
Yes, at times it can be a difficult relationship,
but it just doesn't make sense to break away from something
that's got so much support, so much
security, so much stability.
Like, it just doesn't make sense.
Such views were once dominant across Scotland,
but Michael Keating, author of a new book on the fracturing UK,
says the Union is no longer bound
as it was by empire or the welfare state,
and that Britishness has changed in ways
that seem to leave less space for separate Scottish identity.
What has changed with the identity is not
that it's become more pervasive, because it's always
been pervasive, it's become political.
And feeling very Scottish now is associated
with support for constitutional change and independence.
Brexit has also alienated many Scots, Professor Keating says.
Scotland voted by 62 per cent to remain in Europe.
Immediately, that put independence back on the table
because the only way Scotland could remain in the EU
is to become Independent.
That took a little bit of time to think in.
Scotland voted for...
to remain, not because of nationalism,
because both nationalists and unionists
voted to remain equally.
But since that vote, there's been a move.
On people who support remain have been moving
into the pro-independence camp.
So we've left Glasgow, and we're heading
into the Scottish Highlands.
Across Scotland, the independence question
has become the fundamental political fault line.
In 2014, Scotland voted by 55 per cent to 45 per cent
to remain in the United Kingdom.
But a few years later, most Scottish voters
oppose leaving the EU by 62 per cent to 38 per cent.
And that Brexit, combined with the coronavirus pandemic,
seems to have had a significant impact
on the opinion of constitutionally
moderate Scots.
Out for a day trip to scenic Loch Fyne,
Peter Laybourn says he voted against independence in 2014,
but has since changed his mind.
Brexit, of course, changed it, really, a lot.
It didn't seem to me that Brexit was going to improve anything,
as it hasn't.
And it seemed a good way to change
was for Scotland to go independent.
Scotland has been... had good left-wing government for a good
time.
I wasn't a supporter of the SNP, but now I am.
We venture a little further north,
to Oban a busy ferry port that calls
itself the gateway to Scotland's beautiful islands.
And it's a fine place for seafood.
Here, I find that while anger at Brexit,
and the sense that the Scottish government has handled
the coronavirus better than London,
has pushed some Scots towards independence,
the movement has not been all one-way.
I was all for Scotland becoming independent, separating
from England, but I think now, it's
probably not the wisest idea considering that we're just
coming out of such a drastic period,
where the economy is just basically collapsing.
So I don't think us, you know, giving up our safety net
with the rest of the UK, at this moment in time,
is very wise at all.
Worries about the economic implications of independence
are widely shared, and could still be decisive
if the SNP succeeds in holding another referendum
on the issue.
Yet, my Scottish road trip has also
shown the fraying of loyalties to the UK,
and the yearning many here feel for the chance
to set their own course.
The proud Scot imagined by Robert Burns in his poem
two centuries ago was wrong to think Scotland
was at risk of disappearing.
But the question of whether Scottish identity should
be best expressed within the United Kingdom
or as an independent nation remains very much unresolved.