Citizenship in an Independent Scotland: Legal Status and Political Implications

Defining citizenship status and allocating citizenship rights would be an independent Scotland’s ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’ moment, giving concrete form to the tricky question of ‘who are the Scots?’. Determining who its citizens are would be one of the main prerogatives of a newly sovereign Scottish state. Yet the questions of citizenship status and citizenship rights have received much less attention than many of the other issues which the prospect of independence raises, such as monetary matters and Scotland’s economic prospects in a globalised world, defence and security, and pensions and the welfare state. Drawing on research on citizenship across Europe, especially the case of the new states of south east Europe, this paper looks at the options for citizenship in a new Scotland. It takes into account the complex history of citizenship across the United Kingdom and Ireland, and suggests that relations across these islands will be amongst the main determinants of both the initial determination of the citizenry at the moment of independence and of citizenship policy in the future.