Scotland is the northernmost and second largest of the 4 nations currently forming the United Kingdom.  It extends from 54 to 61 degrees north, and around 2 to 7.5 degrees west, on a similar latitude to Labrador, Estonia and Latvia.  Its location between the North Sea and the NE Atlantic gives it a relatively mild but damp and windy climate.  The land area measures 31,510 sq. miles and extends 274 miles north to south, and up to 154 miles east to west (mainland Scotland). The Hebrides to the west and the Orkney and Shetland Isles to the north, add to the country’s dimensions and the area of its major share of the UK’s 200 mile marine exclusive economic zone, currently surrendered to the EU by the Westminster government.

Much of Scotland is rugged, mountainous, and covered in heather, gorse, bracken with some plantations of pine, fir and birch trees.  The main mountain range, the Grampians, is divided by the fault, of Glen More or the Great Glen, at the foot of which lies Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland, and in the British Isles.  The eastern and southern coastal areas and the central lowlands have excellent soils for agriculture, mainly grain and livestock farming. Scotland has deposits of coal and zinc, but they are not mined at present.  Although it is praised for its rugged beauty, much of Scotland is a despoiled landscape, as a result of the destruction of the ancient forest of Caledon, and the introduction of sheep in large numbers. Wisely managed the land could more resemble Norway, but subject to the current neglect, it could deteriorate to be more like Iceland. 

The population numbers 5.1 million, mostly located in the central belt and divided fairly evenly between the cities and the smaller towns and rural villages.  The main industries of the early 20th century, shipbuilding, engineering, weaving, steel and coal production, have largely gone and have been replaced by North Sea oil production, electronics, and service industries.  But whisky and foodstuffs remain major export items, and tourism continues to be important. 

Although currently part of the United Kingdom, Scotland retains its own legal and banking systems.  Scottish banks produce their own notes which also represent pounds sterling.  There is a vibrant financial industry, Edinburgh is the second financial centre in the UK, and is recognised globally.  Scots Universities have as old a pedigree as those in England, and have recognised excellence in medicine, science, engineering, law, and the humanities.   The (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland which has declined over the last century, has been the main religious body since the Reformation, though in Scotland, unlike England, church and state are separate.  Catholic, Anglican, Baptist and Pentecostal churches are also present.  Scotland has a devolved parliament (Holyrood) with limited powers.  It was established in 1999 following sustained pressure from the people for both devolution and independence. 

Scotland had shared a common monarch with England since 1603, when James VI, King of Scots, became James I, King of England, after the death of England's Queen Elizabeth, who had no children to succeed her. There was no union of the crowns of Scotland and England, which continued as otherwise independent states for the next century. The Stuarts reigned from 1603 until 1707 in a dual Scottish-English monarchy.  There was, however, an interval from 1649 till 1662, when the English monarchy was abolished and replaced by a Commonwealth, whereas the Scottish monarchy continued uninterrupted. Charles II, King of Scots, was crowned at Scone on 1 January 1651. After the Restoration in England he was also crowned King of England on 23 April 1662.



His brother succeeded him as James VII, King of Scots, and James II, King of England, but his Catholic policies created a reaction in both countries, and he was eventually forced to flee to France in 1688/89. The English declared James to have abdicated, whereas the Scottish Parliament, meeting as a Convention of Estates, roundly deposed him as King of Scots. His daughter Mary (a Protestant and the legitimate heir), was invited to succeed him, jointly with her husband, Prince William of Orange, Statthalter of The Netherlands. He reigned as William II, King of Scots, and William III, King of England, while Mary II retained the same designation in both countries. Both nations continued to pursue independent foreign policies, and each had its own currency, church, and legal structures. The Scottish flag was then (and remains now) the Saltire, which has a white diagonal cross on a blue background.

In 1698 the Scots sought to establish their own global trading base abroad, to rival English and Dutch trading companies based in India, S.E. Asia and Africa, and to compete with Spanish colonies in South and Central America.  The Darien scheme, located on the isthmus near the present Panama Canal, was planned by the man who later founded the Bank of England, William Paterson, and a number of Scots merchants.  The scheme immediately attracted the hostile interest of English and Spanish merchants, who prevailed on their governments to prevent supplies from reaching the Darien outpost and to sabotage further development of the Darien venture, which they did.  A brief trade war followed between England and Scotland.

Barely 8 years after Darien, in 1706, in a move calculated among other things to prevent any future challenge to English economic dominance, the Treaty of Union was signed under Queen Anne, the last of the joint Stuart monarchs. Article 1 of the Treaty united the crowns of Scotland and England into a new United Kingdom of Great Britain, and Article 3 set up a completely new parliament to administer the affairs of the Union. Two almost but not quite identical Acts of Union, by the Scottish and English parliaments respectively, ratified and implemented the terms of the Treaty, and the new United Kingdom was created on 1 May 1707. The flag of the United Kingdom combines the flags of Scotland, England and Ireland.

Scotland’s Parliament, which had functioned till then, ceased to meet, although it was never actually disbanded or formally abolished. Its last action was to fix a date and time for its next meeting, but that adjourned session was never held until, 292 years later, a devolved parliament with limited powers was established in Scotland following the positive results of a referendum on the issue.

Following the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and the battle of Culloden the following year, there followed a period of upheaval in the north and west of Scotland known as the Highland Clearances.  Huge tracts of land were taken from clan chiefs that supported the uprising and given to those loyal to the ‘hanovarian’ king George II.   The owners of the highland estates evicted and drove out most of the existing tenant farmers to make room for sheep which were considered much more profitable.  From the mid-18th to the mid-19th century, the Clearances were implemented in determined if spasmodic fashion until the whole region was depopulated of most of its indigenous inhabitants.

The situation Scotland has inherited as a result is one of gross inequality in access to and ownership of land.  A mere 66 landlords claim title to a quarter of the land.  Half of Scotland (19.5 million acres) is owned by 343 landlords.  Most of these estates cater to a hunting elite and rely on exclusivity to attract their clients.  So the land has not been available for indigenous crofter purchase until recently, or for industrial use or housing development.  Meantime real estate values escalate all over the country.

The Clearances also had a marked effect on Gaelic culture which suffered from repression and was eventually largely replaced by a caricature of its original form now evident in the modern tartans and romanticised clan histories.  The Celts revered the land to which they had a strong attachment.  It was traditionally regarded as clan property (not private property), and the modern idea of buying and selling the soil would have been totally alien to them.  But the changes that followed the Clearances made it possible for absentee landlords to evict their tenants with the full backing of the law, though the tenants’ families had toiled there for centuries before the landowner’s family had appeared on the scene.

For any sovereign country to prosper and to provide opportunity for all its peoples, land ownership and taxation should reflect its democratic ideals and ensure the most beneficial utilisation of its resources.  Most of the contributors to this web site are convinced that we stand in need of much more radical steps to address the structural injustice and economic constraints inherent in our current treatment of the land resource.  Robin Harper, MSP has said, “What we need in Scotland is a combination of land value taxation and a thorough review of the planning system … to achieve environmentally sustainable land reform that upholds principles of justice, equity and ecology”.

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