UK elections: What does it mean to be Scottish today? • FRANCE 24 English

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]We're joined by Elena Pompei uh from our uh digital uh media site Enter in partnership with Deutsche. You've been on quite the road trip.

[00:00:09]>> Yes, we went to Scotland with my colleague Claudia Koliva and we went through the entire country from Glasgow to the aisle of sky. So it was incredible and we went to meet young people and ask a question which was quite simple which was what does it mean to be Scottish today? And what is quite interesting is that we found that although in a way the independence question isn't at the forefront of the political campaign as much as it would have been about 10 years ago, um for young people it still is incredibly important and it's a matter of identity even though obviously they couldn't vote back in 2014 for the independence vote or in 2016 for the Brexit vote. This really questions them today in terms of what it means to be Scottish and what is this vote for ultimately >> and th this uh uh question of independence uh is is important. Uh they didn't they're not there is incumbent fatigue though with the SNP.

[00:01:07]>> That is a very good point. I think in a way what we've seen at least with the people we spoke to is that the S&P still holds quite a strong majority in a way in the polls and that's because of the independence question. One of the two people we interviewed Ian he's 23. He's a boat skipper on the aisle of sky. He grew up in a very um you know Scottish family identifies as Scottish and for him you know the vote for the S&P is clear because it's the only way to independence. Annie on the other hand, she's 25. Um, she's from Glasgow. She's got very unionist views, come from a very, uh, pro- unionism family. And the view is quite different from her. So, I prepared a couple things for you to hear.

[00:01:51]>> What it means to be Scottish. I would always say first and foremost that I'm a ski is what we call it in in Sky. I'm a sky man. And then a gale second of all, and then then a Scott. then European and then probably British at the >> Reluctantly.

[00:02:10]>> Yeah. Yeah. Reluctantly British.

[00:02:12]>> I grew up in a household where they identified as British, not Scottish. I'm British, Scottish, European.

[00:02:21]>> Okay. Interesting. So, the the difference of opinion uh over uh whether they're unionists or more separatist. Uh what about EU identity? Because in I know that in Scotland they're all for for returning to the European.

[00:02:36]>> Yes, that was one of the most interesting things we found because despite their very opposing views on independence and on you know what's the way forward for Scotland, the EU sentiment was incredibly strong in both of them. They both acknowledged that for them the loss of you know leaving the EU was incredibly strong. And of course Ian, who you know again is the more sort of like strongly uh independent sort of character in the documentary is someone who kept insisting on the idea that in 2014 the you know prounist sort of won because you know saying that Scotland would have lost membership to the EU and then that's still what happened despite the country voted um unanimously to remain in the in the EU and so this is a loss that they still fed strongly and Annie as well she said quite openly that if leaving the EU meant a chance for Scotland to rejoin the EU, sorry, leaving the UK to rejoin the EU, there would definitely be something that she would be open to, but she obviously sees the route as being fairly complicated, >> fairly complicated. Uh, for now, you said you spoke with young people. What our viewers need to remember is that in Scotland, it's very young people who get to vote. 16 >> 16 Yes, that is the, you know, the lower end of the vote. We spoke to uh people aged 19 to 23 25. we couldn't find the 16 year olds we were hoping for, but they have what we've seen in the polls as well and speaking to people on the streets is that they all so the vast majority of younger people tend to be very pro-EU and this means in a way that they're more likely to vote for pro-independence parties such as the SNP which could partly explain the majority that we see they might get in the upcoming elections on Thursday. All right. And of course, we'll be uh covering that with a special edition of the France 24 debate on Wednesday. And the buildup to those elections because they're not just voting in Scotland.

[00:04:31]Again, they're also voting in Wales and in England. Elena Pompei, many thanks for that. And that will is up already or it's going to be up soon on your on the enter uh website.

[00:04:43]>> It's up. You can find us enter on YouTube. It's a documentary, so you're going to find incredible things on there. We haven't spoken here, but it's really worth a watch. So, thank you for having me. a PE. Many thanks.