Second indyref '˜could cause more instability than Brexit'

A Glasgow University expert has claimed a second independence referendum could cause more instability than Brexit.

Jim Gallagher was Policy & Strategy Adviser to Better Together. Picture: TSPL

Writing in the Daily Record today, Jim Gallagher, the university’s Professor of Government and an adviser to Better Together in 2014, said that whatever the result, a second indyref would still leave Scotland “split down the middle”.

“Brexit has divided Britain with nearly half the country – including Scotland, Northern Ireland and London – resentfully on the losing side.

“Referendums polarise issues, and people. I suspect that’s why most Scots don’t think the right response to Brexit is another independence referendum. It could leave us in an even more unstable and uncertain position than Britain is in today and, whatever the result, it would still leave Scotland split down the middle.

Prof Gallagher wrote that there is still the chance of a better deal for Scotland.

“Leaving Europe could give new, confederal arrangements for Scotland and the UK. Important new powers are coming back from Brussels to Britain and they will be shared between London and Edinburgh, and Cardiff and Belfast, too. All of the UK’s governments will become more powerful.

“For Scotland- with imagination, courage and generosity on both sides there’s room for a deal that gives both nationalists and unionists most of what they want from the constitution.”