The main British political parties have all proposed more autonomy should Scotland stay in Britain.

[T]he European Union has made it possible for distinct peoples like the Scots, Catalans or Basques to contemplate going it alone.

It is testimony to democratic values in Britain and in Spain, where a vote on Catalonia’s independence is scheduled for November, that the question can be put to the people peacefully — in stark contrast to Russia’s armed campaign to punish and dismember Ukraine for trying to break out of the Kremlin’s orbit. In Scotland, there is no threat of reprisals for either choice, and the only pressure is the complexity and fatefulness of that simple question.

Excerpted from The New York Times, September 3, 2014

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