U.K. Court Strikes Down a New Scottish Independence Referendum

A ruling by the U.K. Supreme Court means that there will not be a new independence referendum in Scotland in 2023, though the issue will remain a central point of friction between Edinburgh and London ahead of the 2024 general election in the United Kingdom and could provoke louder calls for unilateral moves in the future. On Nov. 23, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court ruled that the Scottish regional parliament does not have the authority to pass a bill organizing an independence referendum in Scotland. Earlier in the year, the Scottish government, which is led by the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), had asked the Supreme Court whether the regional parliament had the power to pass an independence referendum bill without support from the United Kingdom’s parliament. According to the Nov. 23 ruling, such a bill “is outside the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.”...