title: Congo Crisis

text: The rebels founded a state, the People's Republic of the Congo ("République populaire du Congo"), with its capital at Stanleyville and Christophe Gbenye as president. The new state was supported by the Soviet Union and China, which supplied it with arms, as did various African states, notably Tanzania. It was also supported by Cuba, which sent a team of over 100 advisors led by Che Guevara to advise the Simbas on tactics and doctrine. The Simba rebellion coincided with a wide escalation of the Cold War amid the Gulf of Tonkin incident and it has been speculated that, had the rebellion not been rapidly defeated, a full-scale American military intervention could have occurred as in Vietnam.


title: Congo Crisis

text: After its early string of successes, the Simba rebellion began to encounter local resistance as it encroached on areas outside of the MNC-L's old domain. The People's Republic also suffered from a lack of coherent social and economic policy, contributing to an inability to administer its own territory. From the end of August 1964 the rebels began to lose ground to the ANC. Albertville and Lisala were recaptured in late August and early September. Tshombe, backed by Mobutu, recalled many of his former mercenaries from the Katangese secession to oppose the Simba. Mercenaries, led by "Mad Mike" Hoare and mostly whites from central and southern Africa, were formed into a unit known as 5 Commando ANC. The unit served as the spearhead of the ANC and were involved in unsanctioned killing, torture, looting and rapes in recaptured rebel areas. The mercenaries were also materially supported by the CIA.


title: Congo Crisis

text: In November 1964, the Simbas rounded up the remaining white population of Stanleyville and its environs. The whites were held hostage in the Victoria Hotel in the city to use as bargaining tools with the ANC. In order to recover the hostages, Belgian parachute troops were flown to the Congo in American aircraft to intervene. On 24 November, as part of Operation Dragon Rouge, Belgian paratroopers landed in Stanleyville and quickly secured the hostages. In total, around 70 hostages and 1,000 Congolese civilians were killed but the vast majority were evacuated. The Belgian troops were only under orders to liberate the hostages, rather than push the Simbas out of the city, but the attack nevertheless "broke the back of the eastern insurrection, which never recovered." The Simba leadership went into exile in disarray and severe disagreement; Gbenye was shot in the shoulder by his general after dismissing him. Meanwhile, the Belgian paratroopers and the civilians returned to their country. In the aftermath of the intervention, Belgium itself was publicly accused of neocolonialism.


title: Congo Crisis

text: As a result of the intervention, Tshombe lost the support of Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu and was dismissed from his post as prime minister in October 1965. Soon after "Dragon Rouge", ANC and mercenary troops captured Stanleyville, putting an end to the Simba rebellion. The Simba rebels executed 20,000 Congolese and 392 Western hostages, including 268 Belgians, during the rebellion. Tens of thousands of people were killed in total during the suppression of the Simbas. Pockets of Simba resistance continued to hold out in the eastern Congo, most notably in South Kivu, where Laurent-Désiré Kabila led a Maoist cross-border insurgency which lasted until the 1980s.


title: Congo Crisis

text: In the scheduled March 1965 elections, Tshombe's "Convention Nationale Congolaise" (CONACO) won a large majority of the seats, but a large part of his party soon defected to form the new "Front Démocratique Congolais" (FDC), making the overall result unclear as CONACO controlled the Chamber of Deputies while the FDC controlled the Senate. Kasa-Vubu, attempting to use the situation to block Tshombe, appointed an anti-Tshombe leader, Évariste Kimba of the FDC, to be prime minister-designate in November 1965, but the largely pro-Tshombe Parliament refused to ratify the appointment. Instead of seeking a compromise candidate, Kasa-Vubu again unilaterally declared Kimba to be Prime Minister, which was again rejected, creating a political deadlock. With the government in near-paralysis, Mobutu seized power in a bloodless coup, ostensibly to stop the impasse, on 25 November 1965.


title: Congo Crisis

text: Under the auspices of a "régime d'exception" (the equivalent of a state of emergency), Mobutu assumed sweeping, almost absolute, power for five years, after which, he claimed, democracy would be restored. Mobutu's coup, which promised both economic and political stability, was supported by the United States and other Western governments, and his rule initially met widespread popularity. He increasingly took other powers, abolishing the post of Prime Minister in 1966 and dissolving Parliament in 1967.


title: Congo Crisis

text: Once established as the sole source of political power, Mobutu gradually consolidated his control in the Congo. The number of provinces was reduced, and their autonomy curtailed, resulting in a highly centralised state. Mobutu increasingly placed his supporters in the remaining positions of importance. In 1967, to demonstrate his legitimacy, he created a party, the "Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution" (MPR), which until 1990, was the nation's only legal political party under Mobutu's new constitution. In 1971, the state was renamed Zaire and efforts were made to remove all colonial influences. He also nationalised the remaining foreign-owned economic assets in the country, including the UMHK which became "Gécamines". Despite initial successes, by the time of its disestablishment Mobutu's rule was characterised by widespread cronyism, corruption and economic mismanagement.


title: Congo Crisis

text: In the years after the Congo Crisis, Mobutu was able to remove many opposition figures from the crisis who might threaten his control. Tshombe was sent into a second exile in 1965 after being accused of treason. Between 1966 and 1967, two mutinies in Stanleyville broke out involving up to 800 Katangese gendarmes and former mercenaries of Tshombe. The mutinies were eventually repressed. In 1967, Tshombe was sentenced to death "in absentia" and the same year was kidnapped in an aeroplane hijacking and held under arrest in Algeria. His death in 1969, allegedly from natural causes, has provoked speculation that the Mobutu government may have been involved. Mulele was also lured back to the Congo from exile by the promise of an amnesty but was tortured and murdered.


title: Congo Crisis

text: The issues of federalism, ethnicity in politics and state centralisation were not resolved by the crisis and partly contributed to a decline in support for the concept of the state among Congolese people. Mobutu was strongly in favour of centralisation and one of his first acts, in 1965, were to reunify provinces and abolish much of their independent legislative capacity. Subsequent loss of faith in central government is one of the reasons that the Congo has been labeled as a failed state, and has contributed violence by factions advocating ethnic and localised federalism. Local insurgencies continued in the eastern Congo into the 1980s and left a legacy of instability along the Congo's eastern borders. Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had led an anti-Mobutu insurrection during the crisis, succeeded in deposing Mobutu in 1997 and becoming president of the restored Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila. Following the fall of Mobutu, Antoine Gizenga founded a political party, the "Parti Lumumbiste Unifié" (PALU), and was appointed Prime Minister following the 2006 general election.


title: Congo Crisis

text: The Congo Crisis holds great significance in the collective memory of the Congolese people. In particular, Lumumba's murder is viewed in the context of the memory as a symbolic moment in which the Congo lost its dignity in the international realm and the ability to determine its future, which has since been controlled by the West. Many Congolese view the problems of the crisis as unresolved, and believe that the Congo's self-determination has yet to be secured from Western machinations. The latter notion has largely shaped the political aspirations of a substantial number of Congolese.


title: Congo Crisis

text: The Congo Crisis is usually portrayed in historiography as a time of intense disorder and disarray; there is wide consensus that Congolese independence was a calamity. This interpretation often juxtaposes the crisis with the supposed stability of the Congo under Belgian rule before 1960 and under Mobutu's regime after 1965. In Belgium, allegations of Belgian complicity in the killing of Lumumba led to a state-backed inquiry and subsequent official apology in 2001 for "moral responsibility", though not direct involvement, in the assassination. Most academics have concluded that the United States intervened significantly in the crisis. The multi-volume official history of the American foreign service, "Foreign Relations of the United States", was accused by academic David N. Gibbs of deliberately diminishing American involvement.


title: Congo Crisis

text: The turmoil of the Congo Crisis destabilised Central Africa and helped to ignite the Portuguese Colonial War, especially the war of independence in neighbouring Angola. Angolan nationalists had long had close ties with the Congo where many had lived as exiles. The "União dos Povos de Angola" (UPA), an Angolan nationalist organisation which drew support from the Angolan Bakongo, was supporting ABAKO politicians who had hopes of rebuilding the Kingdom of Kongo, altering the borders established during the colonial period. Believing that the independence of Congo was the first stage in this process, the UPA launched the Baixa de Cassanje revolt in 1961, igniting the conflict in Angola that would last until 1974. The Congolese, later Zairian, governments continued to provide support to Angolan rebels and even participated directly in the subsequent Angolan Civil War.


title: Congo Crisis

text: The crisis caused the newly independent African states to reconsider their allegiances and internal ties. In particular, it led to the division of African states into factions. Moderate-leaning states joined the Brazzaville Group, which called for a degree of unity between Francophone African states and the maintenance of ties with France. Radical states joined the Casablanca Group which called for a Pan-African federation. The chaotic violence of the crisis and the fate of the country's whites, many of whom entered Northern and Southern Rhodesia as refugees, contributed to the widespread belief among whites there that black nationalist politicians were not ready to govern, and prompted fears that immediate majority rule in Rhodesia might lead to a similar situation. After negotiations with Britain repeatedly broke down, Southern Rhodesia's predominantly white government declared independence unilaterally in 1965. It also drove European expatriates in the Central African Republic to support the increasing authoritarianism of David Dacko's regime as a means of protecting their interests. The disorder of Congolese independence was frequently invoked in diplomatic discussions of Sub-Saharan Africa throughout the remainder of the 1960s.


title: Congo Crisis

text: The Katangese secession would prove to be politically influential in Africa. During the Chadian Civil War between 1965 and 1979, the "Front de Libération Nationale du Tchad" (FROLINAT) explicitly rejected secessionism in its bid to remove the southern-backed government of François Tombalbaye following the experience of the Katanga secession, officially stating that "there will be no Katanga in Chad". In the Nigerian Civil War, between 1967 and 1970, the ethnically Igbo region of Biafra seceded from Nigeria, which it accused of privileging the interests of northern ethnic groups and discriminating against the Igbo. The secessions of Biafra and Katanga have frequently been compared in academic writing. Unlike Katanga, Biafra achieved limited official international recognition and rejected the support of Western multinational companies involved in the local oil industry. Biafra was defeated in 1970 and re-integrated into Nigeria.


Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (née Spencer; ; 7 June 1757 – 30 March 1806), was an English aristocrat, socialite, political organiser, author, and activist. Born into the Spencer family, married into the Cavendish family, she was the first wife of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, and the mother of the 6th Duke of Devonshire.


title: Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

text: As the Duchess of Devonshire, she garnered much attention and fame in society during her lifetime. With a preeminent position in the peerage of England, the Duchess was famous for her charisma, political influence, beauty, unusual marital arrangement, love affairs, socializing, and notorious for her gambling addiction, leading to an immense debt.


text: She was the great-great-great-great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales. Their lives, centuries apart, have been compared in tragedy. She was also a great-great-great-aunt of Elizabeth II by marriage through the queen's maternal grandmother.


text: The Duchess was born Miss Georgiana Spencer, on 7 June 1757, as the first child of John Spencer (later Earl Spencer) and his wife, Georgiana (née Poyntz, later Countess Spencer), at the Spencer family home, Althorp. After her daughter's birth, her mother Lady Spencer wrote that "I will own I feel so partial to my Dear little Gee, that I think I never shall love another so well." Two younger siblings followed: Henrietta ("Harriet") and George. The daughter of her sister Henrietta, Lady Caroline Lamb, would become a writer and lover of Lord Byron. John Spencer, a great-grandson of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, came from a wealthy English noble family. He built a Spencer family residence at St. James's, London, and raised his children there. The parents raised Georgiana and her siblings in a happy marriage, which bears no record of there ever having been any extramarital affairs – a rarity in the era. Meanwhile, Georgiana grew to be close to her mother, who was said to favour Georgiana over her other children.


text: When her father assumed the title of Viscount Spencer in 1761, she became The Honourable Georgiana Spencer. In 1765, her father became Earl Spencer, and she Lady Georgiana Spencer.


text: On her seventeenth birthday, 7 June 1774, Lady Georgiana Spencer was married to society's most eligible bachelor, William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Devonshire (aged 25). The wedding took place at Wimbledon Parish Church. It was a small ceremony attended only by her parents, her paternal grandmother Lady Cowper, one of her prospective brothers-in-law, and her soon-to-be sister-in-law, the Duchess of Portland. Her parents were emotionally reluctant to let their daughter go, but she was wed to one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the land. Her father, who had always shown affection to his children, wrote to her, "My Dearest Georgiana, I did not know till lately how much I loved you; I miss you more every day and every hour". Mother and daughter continued to correspond throughout their lives, and many of their letters survive.


text: From the beginning of the marriage, the Duke of Devonshire, who was called "the Duke" by his family and friends, proved to be an emotionally reserved man who did not meet Georgiana's emotional needs. The spouses also had little in common. He would seldom be at her side and would spend nights at Brooks's playing cards. The Duke continued with adulterous behaviour throughout their married life, and discord followed pregnancies that ended in miscarriage or failure to produce a male heir.


text: Before their marriage, the Duke had fathered an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte Williams, born from a alliance with a former milliner, Charlotte Spencer (of no relation to the House of Spencer). This was unknown to the Duchess until years after her marriage to the Duke. After the death of the child's mother, the Duchess was compelled to raise Charlotte herself. Georgiana was "very pleased" with Charlotte, although her own mother Lady Spencer expressed disapproval: "I hope you have not talk'd of her to people". The besotted Georgiana replied, "She is the best humoured little thing you ever saw".


text: In 1782, while on a retreat from London with the Duke, Georgiana met Lady Elizabeth Foster (widely known as "Bess") in the City of Bath. She became close friends with Bess, who had become destitute after separating from her husband and two sons. Given the bond that developed between the two women (and the difficult position her new friend was in), with the Duke's acquiescence Georgiana agreed to have Lady Elizabeth live with them. When the Duke began a sexual relationship with Lady Elizabeth, a ménage à trois was established, and it was arranged that Lady Elizabeth live with them permanently. While it was common for male members of the upper class to have mistresses, it was not common or generally acceptable for a mistress to live so openly with a married couple. Furthermore, Georgiana had been desperately lonely since her marriage to the Duke, and finally having found what she believed to be the ideal friend, she became emotionally codependent on Lady Elizabeth. Having no alternative, the Duchess became complicit in her best friend's affair with her husband the Duke. The arrangement among the three is more commonly referred to as a "ménage à trois" but, while the relationship between the Duke and Lady Elizabeth was obviously sexual, there is no concrete evidence of anything beyond emotional dependence and a particular and open affection on the part of Georgiana. In one of her letters, Georgiana wrote to Bess, "My dear Bess, Do you hear the voice of my heart crying to you? Do you feel what it is for me to be separated from you?" Nevertheless, Bess herself envied her and wished for her position. However, despite her envy Bess did indeed love Georgiana; at her death years later, a locket of Georgiana's hair was found around Elizabeth's neck, as well as a bracelet also containing hair of Georgiana on a table beside her deathbed. Lady Elizabeth insinuated her way into the marriage by taking advantage of the Duchess's friendship and codependency on her, and "engineered her way" into a sexual relationship with the Duke. Lady Elizabeth engaged in well documented sexual relations with other men while she was in the "love triangle" with the Duke and Duchess. Among their contemporaries, the relationship between the Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Elizabeth Foster was the subject of speculation which has continued beyond their time. The love triangle itself was a notorious topic; it was an irregular arrangement in a high-profile marriage. Lady Elizabeth's affair with the Duke resulted in two illegitimate children: a daughter, Caroline Rosalie St Jules, and a son, Augustus Clifford.


text: Despite her unhappiness with her detached and philandering husband and volatile marriage, Georgiana, as contemporary norms dictated, was not socially permitted to take a lover without producing an heir. The first successful pregnancy resulted in the birth of Lady Georgiana Dorothy Cavendish on 12 July 1783. Called "Little G," she would become the Countess of Carlisle and have her own issue. Georgiana developed a strong mothering sentiment since raising Charlotte, and she insisted on nursing her own children (contrary to the aristocratic custom of having a wet nurse). On 29 August 1785, a second successful pregnancy resulted in another daughter: Lady Harriet Elizabeth Cavendish, called "Harryo," who would become Countess Granville and also have children of her own. Finally, on 21 May 1790, the Duchess gave birth to a male heir to the dukedom: William George Spencer Cavendish, who took the title of Marquess of Hartington at birth, and was called "Hart." He would never marry and became known as "the bachelor duke." With the birth of the Marquess of Hartington, Georgiana was able to take a lover. While there is no evidence of when Georgiana began her affair with Charles Grey (later Earl Grey), she did become pregnant by him in 1791. Sent off to France, Georgiana believed she would die in childbirth. Despondent, she wrote a letter to her recently born son stating, "As soon as you are old enough to understand this letter, it will be given to you. It contains the only present I can make you—my blessing, written in my blood...Alas, I am gone before you could know me, but I lov'd you, I nurs'd you nine months at my breast. I love you dearly." On 20 February 1792, Eliza Courtney was born without complications to mother and child. Georgiana's heart was broken yet again when she was forced to give away her illegitimate daughter Eliza to Grey's family. Georgiana would later be allowed to pay visits to her daughter, providing her with presents and affection, and Eliza would grow up to marry Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Ellice and bear a daughter named Georgiana.


text: While in exile in France in the early 1790s, Georgiana suffered from isolation and felt her separation from her children. To her eldest, she wrote, "Your letter dated the 1st of Nov was delightful to me tho' it made me very melancholy my Dearest Child. This year has been the most painful of my life. . . when I do return to you, never leave you I hope again—it will be too great a happiness for me Dear Georgiana & it will have been purchased by many days of regret – indeed ev'ry hour I pass away from you, I regret you; if I amuse myself or see anything I admire I long to share the happiness with you – if on the contrary, I am out of spirits I wish for your presence which alone would do me good". To return to England and her children, she conceded to her husband's demands and renounced her love for Charles Grey. Records of her exile in France were subsequently erased from the family records. However, the children of the Duke and Duchess had at one point been informed as to the reason of her absence during that period of their lives.


text: While the Duchess of Devonshire coped with the marital arrangements on the surface throughout her marriage, she nevertheless suffered emotional and psychological distress. She sought further personal consolation from a "dissipated existence" in passions (socialising, fashion, politics, writing), addictions (gambling, drinking, and drugs), and affairs (with several men, not just Grey, possibly including the bachelor John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset).


text: Georgiana was charismatic, generous, good-humored, and intelligent. Kindhearted, Georgiana instinctively wanted to help others and from a young age, happily gave her money to poor children or her desperate friends. Lady Charlotte Bury wrote of Georgiana's generosity: "when some individual came to her in pecuniary distress, she would always relieve him or her, and leave her own difficulties unprovided for. Oftentimes she was wrong in doing so. ... One must be just before one is generous. But it is impossible not to be charmed by the kindly impulse which made her, without a moment's hesitating, shield another from distress." Georgiana's empathy extended towards animals as well. After noticing a starving cow in a field, Georgiana deduced its owner could not afford to feed it, and so she had the man found and gave him some money.


text: Despite being extremely self-conscious and making strenuous effort to appear perfect, Georgiana "always appeared natural, even when she was called upon to open a ball in front of 800 people. She could engage in friendly chatter with several people simultaneously" and still made each person feel special. Widely described as almost impossible to dislike, Georgiana captured the hearts of almost everyone she met. The artist Mrs Delaney, Mary Delany echoed many who recorded their experiences meeting Georgiana: "[She was] so agreeable, so obliging in her manner, that I am "quite" in love with her. I can't tell you the civil things she said, and really they deserve a better name, which is "kindness" embellished by "politeness". I hope she will "illumine" and "reform" her contemporaries!" Even the prudish Frances Burney was begrudgingly won over by Georgiana's unassuming grace. Georgiana was not a snob, and lacked the condescending airs of the aristocracy; she made people of all classes feel valued and at ease in her company. An example of her lack of airs was when Georgiana pointedly danced with French actor Monsieur Tessier after the Duchess of Manchester Elizabeth Montagu, Duchess of Manchester snobbishly refused to speak to him because he earned a living.


text: From childhood, Georgiana showed a characteristic need to please others and a need for attention. Her mother Lady Spencer, Georgiana Spencer, Countess Spencer raised her to behave as if she were a courtier always on show, and this training only augmented her people pleasing tendencies. Lady Spencer knew she was partly responsible for her daughter's faults, and worried for her daughter's future. Her natural temperament combined with her breeding made Georgiana become an excitable, impressionable young woman vulnerable to peer pressure. Indeed, Georgiana did the opposite of what Mary Delany hoped and was instead corrupted by her contemporaries. Her inability to say no to her degenerate friends in the "ton" led Georgiana into many scrapes against her better judgement and made her feel shame over her behavior.


text: With her renowned unconventional beauty and kind character, alongside her marriage to the affluent and powerful Duke of Devonshire, the Duchess of Devonshire enjoyed preeminence in society. She was a high emblem of the era. Georgiana was arguably the Diana, Princess of Wales of her time, as her popularity with the press and public can be compared to what her descendant experienced more than two hundred years later. Like Diana, every move Georgiana made was watched by spies around her and then reported on by the press, her every mistake made mockery of the next day in the papers. On a personal note, Georgiana and Diana had in common a famously unhappy marriage, a binging eating disorder, a passionate personality, and a mutual love for their children.


text: Like her dear friend Marie Antoinette, the Duchess of Devonshire was one of the fashion icons of her time, and her elegantly flashy style made her the leader of fashion in England. Every outfit Georgiana wore, including her hairstyle, was immediately copied by the masses. The fashionable styling of her hair alone reached literally extraordinary heights above her exuberant outfits.


text: Using her influence as a leading socialite and fashion icon, the Duchess of Devonshire contributed to politics, science, and literature. As part of her illustrious social engagements, the Duchess would gather around her a large salon of literary and political figures. Among her major acquaintances were the most influential figures of her time, including the Prince of Wales (later King George IV); Marie Antoinette of France and her favourite in court, the Duchess of Polignac; Charles Grey (later Earl Grey and British Prime Minister); and Lady Melbourne (lover of the Prince of Wales). Newspapers chronicled her every appearance and activity.


text: She was called a "phenomenon" by Horace Walpole who proclaimed, "[she] effaces all without being a beauty; but her youthful figure, flowing good nature, sense and lively modesty, and modest familiarity make her a phenomenon". Madame d'Arblay, who had a preference for acquaintances of talent, found that her appeal was not generally for her beauty but for far more which included fine "manner, politeness, and gentle quiet." Sir Nathaniel Wraxall stated that her success as an individual lay "in the amenity and graces of her deportment, in her irresistible manners, and the seduction of her society."


text: Famously, when the Duchess was stepping out of her carriage one day, an Irish dustman exclaimed: "Love and bless you, my lady, let me light my pipe in your eyes!" Thereafter, whenever others would compliment her, the Duchess would retort, "After the dustman's compliment, all others are insipid."


text: The Spencer family, from which the Duchess derived, was an ardent supporter of the Whig party as were she and the Cavendish family. However, because the Duke's high position in the peerage disallowed him from participating so commonly in politics, Georgiana took it as a positive outlet for herself. In an age when the realisation of women's rights and suffrage were still more than a century away, Georgiana became a political activist as the first woman to make active and influential front line appearances on the political scene. Having begun her involvement in politics in 1778 (when she inspired a mass of women to promote the Whig party), she relished enlightenment and Whig party ideals and took it upon herself to campaign—particularly for a distant cousin, Charles James Fox, who was chief party leader alongside Richard Brinsley Sheridan—for Whig policies which were anti-monarchy and advocated for liberty against tyranny.


text: At the time of her involvement, King George III (who detested the Whigs) and his ministers had a direct influence over the House of Commons, principally through their power of patronage. The Prince of Wales, who always relished going against the grain with his father, joined the Whig party when his friend, the Duchess, became involved. She was renowned for hosting dinners that became political meetings, and she took joy in cultivating the company of brilliant radicals.


text: During the general election of 1784, Georgiana became a major subject of scrutiny. Fanciful rumours and political cartoons circulated during the campaign, ridiculing her for securing votes in exchange for sexual—and monetary—rewards. Thomas Rowlandson even satirised her with a rumour of her trading kisses in his print "THE DEVONSHIRE, or Most Approved Method of Securing Votes". Her mother pleaded with her to step down. Still, Georgiana was not daunted and was adamant in her activism. On election day, the Duchess of Devonshire walked the streets of London, even gaining blisters on her feet, meeting face-to-face with commoners as equals. She was instrumental in the success of Fox and Lord Hood. Regardless, after the extensive campaigning and negative media onslaught against her, she retired after the win from the political arena for a while. In 1788, she returned to political activism, however, behind the scenes.


text: Even in the last years of her life, she pushed ahead in the field and attempted to help rebuild the Whig party, which had become fragmented; her efforts were to no avail, and the political party would eventually come to dissolve decades after her death.


text: In her life, the Duchess was an avid writer and composed several works, of both prose and poetry, of which some were published.


text: She composed poetry as a young girl to her father, and some of it later circulated in manuscript. It was read by Walpole (who said it was "easy and prettily expressed, though it does not express much") and Reverend William Mason (who was more favorable with higher opinions).


text: The first of her published literary works was "Emma; Or, The Unfortunate Attachment: A Sentimental Novel" in 1773.


text: In 1778, Georgiana released epistolary novel "The Sylph". Published anonymously, it had autobiographical elements, centering on a fictional aristocratic bride who had been corrupted, and as "a novel-cum-exposé of [the duchess's] aristocratic cohorts, depicted as libertines, blackmailers, and alcoholics." It has been speculated that "The Sylph" may have instead been written by Sophia Briscoe, and a receipt at the British Library suggests that Briscoe was paid for the published work. However, it is thought more likely that Briscoe may have served as an intermediary between the Duchess of Devonshire and her publisher so that the duchess could keep her anonymity. Georgiana is said to have at least privately admitted to her authorship. "The Sylph" was a success and underwent four reprintings.


text: "Memorandums of the Face of the Country in Switzerland" (1799) is often wrongly attributed to Georgiana. It was in fact written by Rowley Lascelles, based on a Swiss tour in 1794.


text: One more piece was published in the last years of Georgiana's life, "The Passage of the Mountain of Saint Gothard", first in an unauthorised version in the 'Morning Chronicle' and 'Morning Post' of 20 and 21 December 1799, then in a privately printed edition in 1800. A poem dedicated to her children, "The Passage of the Mountain of Saint Gothard" was based on her passage of the Saint Gotthard Pass, with Bess, between 10 and 15 August 1793 on returning to England. The thirty-stanza poem, together with 28 extended notes, were furthermore translated into some of the main languages of Western Europe including into French, by Jacques Delille, in 1802; Italian, by Gaetano Polidori, in 1803; and German in 1805. "The Passage of the Mountain of Saint Gothard" was then reprinted in 1816, after Georgiana's death. Samuel Taylor Coleridge published a glowing response to the poem, 'Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire' in the 'Morning Post' on 24 December 1799.


text: The 5th Duchess of Devonshire was connected to some of the greatest men of letters of her time, and Samuel Johnson, a famed writer of the era, had even paid a visit to the Duke and Duchess, in 1784, at their Chatsworth home.


text: The Duchess had a small laboratory where she conducted chemistry experiments and studied geology, natural history and was most passionate for mineralogy. In addition to her scientific curiosity, Georgiana wanted to contribute to her children's education.


text: Her interest in science arose in part as she was related through marriage to the pneumatic chemist Henry Cavendish whose lab she visited in Clapham. The Duchess frequently engaged in scientific dialogue with prominent scientists of the era including Sir Charles Blagden, Professor Henri Struve, Horace Bénédict de Saussure, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir William Hamilton, Professor Gian Vincenzo Petrini, White Watson, Bryan Higgins, and Benjamin Thompson. Her knowledge of chemistry and mineralogy was regarded as genius as Thomas Beddoes wrote to Erasmus Darwin noting Georgiana, "manifested a knowledge of modern chemistry superior to that he should have supposed any duchess or lady in England was possessed of". Petrini, Blagden, and Henry Cavendish likewise contacted her mother Countess Spencer remarking upon the Duchess's aptitude, degree of knowledge she acquired, and extraordinary observations in the field of mineralogy. In pursuit of her interest, she hiked to the summit of Mount Vesuvius to observe and study the active crater and later began the Devonshire Mineral Collection at Chatsworth (the main seat of the dukes of Devonshire).


text: The Duchess played a key role in formulating, with Thomas Beddoes, the idea of establishing the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol. Her efforts to establish the Pneumatic Institute which advanced the study of factitious airs is an important event that provided framework for modern anesthesia as well as modern biomedical research in gasotransmitters.


text: As was common among the aristocracy of her time, Georgiana routinely gambled for leisure and amusement. Her gaming spiraled into a ruinous addiction, however, made worse by her emotional instability.


text: In the first years of her marriage, she accumulated debts that surpassed the 4,000 pounds that the Duke provided her annually as pin money. Her own mother disapproved and admonished her, unsuccessfully, to break her habit. After she had first incurred over 3,000 pounds in debt, Georgiana implored her parents to give her a loan as she absolutely would not inform her husband of her debts. Her parents acquiesced and told her to inform the Duke, who nevertheless found out beforehand and repaid them.


text: For the rest of her life, Georgiana continued to amass an immense, ever-escalating debt that she always tried to keep hidden from her husband (even though he was among the richest men in the land). While she would admit to some amount, it was always less than the total, which even she could not keep up with. In confidence, she would ask for loans from the Prince of Wales. At one point, to try to settle some of her debts, she did not shrink from pressing her friend, the affluent banker Thomas Coutts for funds.


text: Her absence from English society and exile in France had isolated Georgiana and was a low point for her in every respect; she returned to England, a "changed woman". The Duke began suffering from gout, and she spent her time at his side nursing him. With also a new miscarriage, this circumstance with her husband brought about a softening and closeness between the spouses. She took a positive interest in science, took up writing again (producing two more works), and even continued her political activism while trying to rebuild the Whig party (to no avail before its end). Georgiana also came to meet and become friends with the wife of her former lover, Charles Grey.


text: In 1796, Georgiana succumbed to illness in one eye; the medical treatment resulted in a scarring of her face. However, "Those scars released her from her fears. All the inhibitions about whether she was beautiful enough or whether she was up to the job left her". In her late thirties, Georgiana was able to regain pre-eminence and enjoyment in open society, although her personal life would continue to be marred by degrees of unhappiness, debt, and decline in health.


text: During her early forties, the Duchess of Devonshire devoted her time to the coming out of her eldest daughter, Lady Georgiana Dorothy Cavendish. The debutante was presented in 1800, and the Duchess saw her daughter wed Lord Morpeth, the heir apparent of the Earl of Carlisle, in 1801; it was the first and only time the Duchess of Devonshire saw one of her issue marry.


text: Georgiana's health continued to decline well into her forties, and her gambling addiction continued. She once reached out to her mother, begging for a sum of 100 pounds and complaining to her of jaundice. While her mother at first believed her daughter was just ill from her gambling, Countess Spencer, as well as those around Georgiana, soon came to realise she was truly sick. She was thought to be suffering from an abscess on her liver.


text: Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, died on 30 March 1806, at 3:30, at the age of 48. She was surrounded by her husband, the 5th Duke of Devonshire; her mother, Countess Spencer; her sister, the Countess of Bessborough; her eldest daughter, Lady Morpeth (who was eight months pregnant); and Lady Elizabeth Foster. They were all said to have been inconsolable over her death. For the first time, the Duke showed moving emotion towards his late wife, as a contemporary wrote, "The Duke has been most deeply affected and has shown more feeling than anyone thought possible—indeed every individual in the family are in a dreadful state of affliction." Georgiana's eldest daughter furthermore poured out her feelings, "Oh my beloved, my adored departed mother, are you indeed forever parted from me—Shall I see no more that angelic countenance or that blessed voice—You whom I loved with such tenderness, you who were the . . . best of mothers, Adieu—I wanted to strew violets over her dying bed as she strewed sweets over my life, but they would not let me." Her distant cousin, Charles James Fox, for whom she had triumphantly campaigned, was noted to have cried. The Prince of Wales himself lamented, "The best natured and the best-bred woman in England is gone." Thousands of the people of London congregated at Piccadilly, where the Cavendish family's town house was located, to mourn her. She was buried at the family vault at All Saints Parish Church (now Derby Cathedral) in Derby.


text: The legacy of the life of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire has remained a topic of study and intrigue in cultural and historical spheres centuries after her death.


text: Immediately after her death, the Duke of Devonshire discovered the extent of her debts. He soon enough married Lady Elizabeth Foster, who became Duchess of Devonshire as his second wife.


text: Georgiana's children were discontented with the marriage as they never liked Lady Elizabeth at all (something which caused dismay with their mother when she was alive). When William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, died on 29 July 1811, the Marquess of Hartington became 6th Duke of Devonshire. He sought to liquidate his late mother's entire debts. Meanwhile, Lady Elizabeth fought to keep Cavendish properties to which she wasn't entitled; furthermore, the 6th Duke denied her demand that her illegitimate son with the 5th Duke of Devonshire, Clifford, bear the Cavendish crest. Infuriated, Lady Elizabeth brought back up her affair with the 5th Duke of Devonshire by publicly announcing he had sired her illegitimate children. The 6th Duke of Devonshire finally oversaw an end to it all—the mistake of his late mother of bringing in Lady Elizabeth into her life and all the ensuing consequences—with the final dismissal of Lady Elizabeth by paying her off. Nevertheless, Georgiana's children lived the remainder of their lives with mutually positive relations with Lady Elizabeth Foster's children, having grown up together.


text: In 1786, Susanna Rowson, who went on to become a bestselling author, dedicated her first published work, "Victoria", to the Duchess of Devonshire.


text: With the topic of liberation at the heart of policies she supported in life, the bold involvement of the Duchess of Devonshire in political activism pioneered women's public frontstage and influential participation in the field in a time before the validation of women's rights and subsequent feminist ideals.


text: Artwork representing the Duchess of Devonshire by reputable painters of the Georgian era remain, including a 1787 portrait by the famed Thomas Gainsborough which was once thought lost.


text: Over 1,000 personal letters written by the Duchess of Devonshire remain in existence. Chatsworth, the duke of Devonshire's seat, houses a majority of her letters in historical archives.


text: In modern times, her life's circumstances are seen as an example of female oppression by historical, cultural and legal constructs favoring male interests while denying rights to the female party in a relationship. They have become the subject of scholarly and dramatised works.


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: Thomas Kretschmann (; born 8 September 1962) is a German actor who has appeared in many European and American films. His notable roles include Lieutenant Hans von Witzland in "Stalingrad" (1993), Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld in "The Pianist" (2002), Hermann Fegelein in "Downfall" (2004), Captain Englehorn in "King Kong" (2005), Major Otto Remer in "Valkyrie" (2008), the voice of Professor Z in "Cars 2" (2011), and as the journalist Jürgen Hinzpeter in "A Taxi Driver" (2017). He also portrayed Baron Wolfgang von Strucker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films "" (2014) and "" (2015).


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: Kretschmann has twice been nominated for the Deutscher Fernsehpreis for Best Actor. He is also a European Film Award and Nika Award nominee.


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: At the age of 25, he began acting, starring in numerous European films and television series, including Westler in 1985. Then in 1991, Kretschmann was awarded the Max Ophüls Prize for best young actor for his role in "Der Mitwisser". He went on to star in his first full-length feature, the 1993 film "Stalingrad". He achieved international recognition for his role as sadomasochistic rapist and murderer Alfredo Grossi in Dario Argento's "The Stendhal Syndrome".


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: Although popular in his homeland, Kretschmann did not achieve notice in Hollywood until his role as Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld in Roman Polanski's 2002 film "The Pianist". In the years since, Kretschmann has often portrayed military officers in films about the Third Reich. In the 2004 film "Downfall", Kretschmann played Hermann Fegelein, a Waffen-SS colonel and brother-in-law to Eva Braun. In the 2008 thriller "Valkyrie", Kretschmann played Major Otto Ernst Remer, a Wehrmacht officer who had a key role in stopping the 20 July Plot. Prior to the casting of Tom Cruise, Kretschmann had been considered to play Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Kretschmann also played Adolf Eichmann in a 2007 biographical film.


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: Kretschmann made his first appearance on American television in 2003 when he guest starred in 2 episodes of "24". He later also appeared in Relic Hunter. In 2004, Kretschmann played Timothy Cain, a ruthless Umbrella Major, in "". In the same year, he appeared in the French film "Immortal" with Linda Hardy. The film was notable for its use of a digital backlot and interaction between Computer-generated characters and real actors. In 2005, Kretschmann won a role in Peter Jackson's remake of "King Kong", where he worked again with Adrien Brody, with whom he had costarred in "The Pianist".


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: The following year, Kretschmann began to win acclaim for his role in "" ("Rohtenburg" in Germany). A psychological thriller, the movie co-stars Keri Russell and was inspired by the Armin Meiwes cannibalism case. It was scheduled for a March 2006 release in Germany, but its showing is under injunction after Meiwes successfully sued to have it banned on grounds of infringement of his personality rights. At the 2006 Festival de Cine de Sitges, Kretschmann shared the Best Actor award for his performance in this film with his co-star Thomas Huber. Kretschmann also shared Best Actor with Huber at the 2007 Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival.


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: In 2008 Kretschmann was hired for the role of Johann Krauss in Guillermo del Toro's "". However, after several trials del Toro decided that Kretschmann's voice and the mechanical sound FX to Johann's suit did not mesh well, so the part went to Seth MacFarlane. That same year he appeared in the action thriller "Wanted", alongside Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy.


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: 2009 saw Kretschmann guest star in the American science-fiction TV drama series "FlashForward", as well as a major secondary part in the British biopic "The Young Victoria" as King Leopold I of Belgium. This film also received three Academy Awards nominations in 2010 for Best Art Direction, Makeup, and won for Costume Design.


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: The next year he returned to Germany, guest starring as himself in the romantic comedy "Rabbit without Ears" 2. Kretschmann then moved to Malaysia in the summer to shoot his scenes for the German biopic "Jungle Child" based on the eponymous bestseller by Sabine Kuegler. The film was released in early 2011. Walt Disney Pictures confirmed in November 2010, that Kretschmann would star as one of the voice talents in the Pixar film "Cars 2". The film was released in the United States on 24 June 2011, in the United Kingdom on 22 July and in Germany on 28 July.


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: Kretschmann starred as Captain Kurt Brynildson in the 2011–2012 ABC original paranormal/adventure/horror television series "The River" about a group of people on a mission to find a missing TV explorer in the Amazon.


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: Kretschmann signed a multi-film contract with Marvel Studios to play Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, and first appeared as the character in a post-credits scene of the 2014 film "". He had a larger role as the character in the 2015 movie "".


title: Thomas Kretschmann

text: Kretschmann often re-records his own parts for the German dubs of his screen roles. Aside from acting, Kretschmann has also worked as a fashion model, including a stint as the face for a scent by Hugo Boss.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: Novorossiya or New Russia (, ; , ]), also referred to as the Union of People's Republics (; , ]) was a confederation of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) in Eastern Ukraine, both of which are under the control of pro-Russian separatists.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The concept of "Novorossiya" emerged in public discourse along with the beginning of conflict in east Ukraine. Referring to the historic Novorossiya, a former imperial Russian territory conquered from the Cossacks and the Ottomans in which Russian settlers were encouraged to settle, Russia promoted this new Russia concept as a new identity for the Ukrainian breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The two constituent republics of the proposed confederation have limited diplomatic recognition, while the Ukrainian government classified them as terrorist groups and initially referred to their territory as the Anti-terrorist Operation Zone. The creation of Novorossiya was declared on 22 May 2014, and one month later spokesmen of both republics declared their merger into a confederal "Union of People's Republics". Within a year, the project was suspended: on 1 January 2015, founding leadership announced the project has been put on hold, and on 20 May the constituent members announced the freezing of the political project.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The historical "Novorossiya" was a territory of the Russian Empire formed from the Crimean Khanate and the Zaporozhian Sich, which was under a mutual condominium of the Russian Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The territory had been annexed several years after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca concluded the Russo-Turkish War in 1774. Novorossiya initially included today's Southern Ukraine as well as some parts of today's Russia such as Kuban. The modern Russian Black Sea coast that was occupied by the Russian Tsardom from native Circassians under the military protection of the Ottoman Empire was not conquered until 1829 and was ceded to Russia in the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic was invoked during the war in Donbas (started 2014), when the legislature of the unrecognized separatist Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) adopted a memorandum on 5 February 2015 declaring itself the successor to the Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic, and Artyom as a founding father.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The region was soon colonized by Ukrainian, Romanian, Russian, German, Greek, Bulgarian, Jewish, and other settlers. The major cities were Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Novorossiisk (now called Dnipro). In 1802, the governorate of Novorossiya was split into three governorates.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: Most of the 18th century Novorossiya was incorporated in 1917 into the newly proclaimed Ukrainian People's Republic. After the defeat of pro-independence Ukrainians in the Ukrainian–Soviet War, the Soviet government confirmed that Southern Ukraine was part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The Novorossiya movement made its appearance in Odesa in August 1990. The movement, known as the Democratic Union of Novorossiya, argued that given the separate ethnos of the region it should have an autonomous status within a federated Ukrainian state. It campaigned for "special state status" within "the historical boundaries of Novorossiya" (at the time Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, and Crimean Oblasts, and also part of the Dniester region of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic). It failed, however, to gain popular support.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: In September 1990, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published an article in opposition to the cultural partition of Ukraine and Russia in which he references "Novorossiya", i.e., "including those regions which have never been part of the traditional Ukraine: the 'wild steppe' of the nomads the later 'New Russia' as well as the Crimea, the Donbass area, and the lands stretching east almost to the Caspian Sea". He argues that "self-determination of peoples" requires that a nation must resolve issues of identity "for itself".


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: By November 1991, representatives from the Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Crimean Oblasts had met in Odesa to discuss the question of forming a new state, "Novorossiya". This was necessitated, they explained, by the growth of "nationalist tendencies" in Ukraine, its increasing isolationism, and diminishing ties with Russia.Three days after the 1 December 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum, the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, argued that Russia had handed over to Ukraine "a whole series of Russian provinces, the so-called Novorossiya, whose population is for the most part Russian" and that the Russian minority in Ukraine was threatened with forcible "Ukrainianisation". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the term "Novorossiya" began to be used again in calls for the independence or secession of regions of Ukraine corresponding to different areas.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: As late as September 1992, in Odesa, several organizations such as the Civic Movement of Odesa, Rus', the Socialist Party, and Novorossiya were campaigning for the establishment of a separate Novorossiyan region, the exact borders of which were still being debated.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: In June 1994, the chairman of Transnistria's Supreme Council made a reference to Crimea, Odesa and other oblasts as "Novorossiya".


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: After the Orange Revolution, Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center wrote that in 2005 and again in 2008 some quarters in Moscow, that were not entirely academic, discussed the idea of a Russia-friendly buffer state, "Novorossiya", being formed out of Southern Ukraine from the Crimea to Odesa in response to perceived Western penetration into the former Soviet Union. However, the schema was not encouraged due to perceived waning of the Orange movement.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The idea persisted on the political margins within Ukraine and Russia until resurfaced in spring 2014. As part of Ukrainian-Russian conflict, after successful annexation of Crimea Russia subsequently intervened in eastern Ukraine, exploiting unrest therein agitating and lending support for separatism. In April, after Russian backed separatists seized administration buildings in Donbas the term "Novorossiya" has been brought up often. On 17 April, during talks in Geneva on resolving the crisis, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated at a question and answer session that even "in the tsarist days Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolayev and Odessa were not part of Ukraine" but part of Novorossiya, and that they had been irresponsibly ceded to Ukraine (in fact, the city of Kharkiv and surroundings never belonged to the historical Novorossiya, but to Sloboda Ukraine).


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: On 29 August 2014, President Putin issued a statement addressed to the "Militia of Novorossiya" calling upon it to show humanitarian compassion and allow surrounded Ukrainian soldiers to withdraw and reunite with their families. This was the last official statement by Putin addressing "Novorossiya".


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: As part of Russia hybrid warfare in Ukraine on 17 April 2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his concept of the historic Novorossiya, giving legitimacy to the nascent separatist movement when he described the Donbas as part of the historic "New Russia" ("Novorossiya") region, and issued a statement of bewilderment as how the region had ever become part of Ukraine in 1922 with the foundation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Few weeks earlier, Putin used similar language when referring to Crimea, which ended with its annexation.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The New Russia Party, founded on 13 May 2014 in Donetsk, Ukraine, declared on its first congress of 22 May 2014 the formation of a new self-declared state named "Novorossiya", inspired by the historical region of the Russian Empire that carried that name. The congress was attended by separatist officials of the Donetsk People's Republic, the Donbas People's Militia as well as by the Donetsk Republic leader Pavel Gubarev, ultranationalist/Stalinist writer Alexander Prokhanov, Eurasianist political scientist and Eurasia Party leader Aleksandr Dugin, and . According to Gubarev the state would include Kharkiv (not part of historical Novorossiya), Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and possibly Sumy (which was later removed from Gubarev's plans). Two days later, the self-appointed "Prime Minister" of Donetsk Alexander Borodai and Luhansk "head of the Republic" Aleksey Karyakin signed a document behind closed doors formalizing their merger into the new confederation. It was also proposed to have Transnistria and Gagauzia join Novorossiya.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: In an interview on 31 May, Denis Pushilin, then acting as head of state of the Donetsk People's Republic, stated that Novorossiya currently existed as a union of people's republics, but cooperation could be deepened if more territories were to join. On 24 June, the two separatist republics proclaimed their accession to the union of people's republics, and at the second plenum of the new Parliament of Novorossiya on 15 July, the confederation adopted the official name of Novorossiya. Since the 2 November 2014 Donbas general elections, the Parliament has not gathered again.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: On 12 December 2014, a "Congress of Deputies of All Levels" led by former DPR deputy foreign minister Boris Borisov, alongside figures such as Pavel Gubarev, issued a renewed declaration of the state sovereignty of the "Union of Sovereign Republics" of Novorossiya, claiming it to be an amendment of the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the USSR. In contrast to the May agreement, the new declaration aimed to build a new executive "from scratch". An official of the DPR responded that although Borisov was well-intentioned, his initiative did not have the material backing necessary for success.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: On 20 May 2015, supporters of the LNR and the DNR officially announced the freezing of the "New Russia" project and the closure of the related structures of political technology. Oleg Tsaryov, chairman of the movement "New Russia", said that the activities of the Joint Parliament of Novorossiya are frozen because the confederation did not comply with the Minsk II accords. On 11 May 2014, a referendum on self-determination in eight regions (Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Donetsk) was not held as expected, but only in the Luhansk and Donetsk republics. On 24 May 2014, delegates from these eight regions created the Joint Parliament of New Russia; however, this proved to be only virtual as the political structure was unclaimed: the expected delegation of representatives did not occur, leading to the curtailment of the Parliament initiative.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The status of Novorossiya came into dispute on 26 May 2014, when according to Valery Bolotov, "none of the agreements have been concluded" but the intention is to form a "Union of People's Republics". On 1 January 2015, former Donetsk Republic Prime Minister Alexander Borodai, who resigned on 7 August 2014, stated that "there is no Novorossiya" and that the proposed state was a "dream that was not brought to life" and called it a false start. On 8 June 2015, the leaders of the DPR and the LPR submitted their proposed changes to the Constitution of Ukraine that, while calling for wide autonomy of the Donbas region, conceded them as territories of Ukraine. No change was proposed regarding the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as part of Ukraine, considering the status of Crimea outside their purview. This was imputed by news agencies as a recognition by the leaders of the DPR and the LPR of Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea. Given this interpretation, these changes were withdrawn within hours, and on 15 June 2015, DPR "Prime Minister" Alexander Zakharchenko claimed that the DPR "will never be part of Ukraine".


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: In mid-June 2015, Igor Girkin said that the situation in Novorossiya was a "colossal failure" no one knew how to patch up and that the plan was to negotiate the return of the autonomous regions of Donetsk and Luhansk to Ukraine in return for Ukraine's "de facto" acceptance of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the gradual withdrawal of sanctions, and the return of all other territories to their previous condition. According to Girkin, should such a "wonderful" plan be realized, Ukraine would become a federal state. "Consequently, in such a manner, a safety catch would be put in place for its entry into NATO. Russia would get leverage over Kyiv in the form of the autonomous regions, and everything would settle down." On 9 June 2016, an anonymous Russian businessman averred that the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 forfeited any chance to create the confederation.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: A project was declared on 18 July 2017 by the Donetsk People's Republic to include all of Ukraine, but the name was changed to ""Malorossiya"" (Little Russia). The Luhansk People's Republic, however, stated that it would not be taking part in the project. The announcement was widely condemned by nations, including Russia, which pointed to the Minsk agreement.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia occupied a significant portion of the territory that is proposed as "Novorossiya". Some areas of the Mykolaiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts are currently occupied. Russia has created civilian military administrations in the Kherson, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. From 23–27 September 2022, Russia held annexation referendums in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Luhansk People’s Republic, Kherson Oblast and Zaporizhzhia Oblast regarding accession to the Russian Federation, however the Ukrainian government considers these referendums illegitimate.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The Armed Forces of Novorossiya were composed of the Donbas People's Militia and the LPR People's Militia (formerly known as the Army of the South-East).


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: The militias of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic merged into one force on 16 September 2014, forming the "United Armed Forces of Novorossiya".


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: It is regarded as a terrorist group by the Government of Ukraine and was accused of the downing of a civil aircraft, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, on 17 July 2014.


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: No sovereign state of the United Nations has recognized Novorossiya as a sovereign state or political entity. The two constituent republics, the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic, are only recognized by three United Nations members, Russia (since 21 February 2022), Syria (since 29 June 2022), North Korea (since 13 July 2022), as well as by the "de facto" states of South Ossetia (since 2014) and Abkhazia (since 25 February 2022).


title: Novorossiya (confederation)

text: Russian dissidents Aleksandr Skobov and Andrey Piontkovsky commented that in its political features (nationalism, imperialism) the entity has similarities to 20th-century fascist movements.


title: Scottish independence

text: Scottish independence (; ) is the idea of Scotland as a sovereign state, independent from the United Kingdom, and refers to the political movement that is campaigning to bring it about.


title: Scottish independence

text: Scotland was an independent kingdom through the Middle Ages, and fought wars to maintain its independence from England. The two kingdoms were joined in personal union in 1603 when the Scottish King James VI became James I of England, and the two kingdoms united politically into one kingdom called Great Britain in 1707. Political campaigns for Scottish self-government began in the 19th century, initially in the form of demands for home rule within the United Kingdom. Two referendums on devolution were held in 1979 and 1997, with a devolved Scottish Parliament being established on 1 July 1999.


title: Scottish independence

text: The pro-independence Scottish National Party first became the governing party of the devolved parliament in 2007, and it won an outright majority of seats at the 2011 Scottish Parliament election. This led to an agreement between the Scottish and UK governments to hold the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Voters were asked: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" 44.7 percent of voters answered "Yes" and 55.3 percent answered "No", with a record voter turnout of 85 percent.


title: Scottish independence

text: A second referendum on independence has been proposed, particularly since the UK voted to leave the European Union in a June 2016 referendum and since pro-independence parties increased their majority in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. In June 2022, Nicola Sturgeon proposed the date of 19 October 2023 for a new referendum on Scottish independence, subject to confirmation of its legality and constitutionality. In November 2022, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled that the Scottish Parliament did not have the power to legislate for a second referendum.


title: Scottish independence

text: Scotland emerged as an independent polity during the Early Middle Ages, with some historians dating its foundation from the reign of Kenneth MacAlpin in 843. The level of independence of the Scottish kingdom was fought over by the Scottish kings and by the Norman and Angevin rulers of England who petitioned the Pope and other foreign rulers.


title: Scottish independence

text: A watershed in the Scottish kingdom's history was a succession crisis that erupted in 1290 when Edward I of England claimed the right of appointment to the Scottish throne. The Auld Alliance of Scotland and France against English interests was first invoked at that time and remained active through to the 16th century. The Wars of Scottish Independence ended in a renewed kingdom under Robert the Bruce (crowned 1306), whose grandson Robert II of Scotland was the first Scottish king of the House of Stuart.


title: Scottish independence

text: From 1603 Scotland and England shared the same monarch in a personal union when James VI of Scotland was declared King of England and Ireland in what was known as the Union of the Crowns. After James II and VII was deposed in 1688 amid Catholic-Protestant disputes, and as the line of Protestant Stuarts showed signs of failing (as indeed occurred in 1714), English fears that Scotland would select a different monarch, potentially causing conflict within Great Britain, and the bankruptcy of many Scottish nobles through the Darien scheme led to the formal union of the two kingdoms in 1707, with the Treaty of Union and subsequent Acts of Union, to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Scottish Jacobite resistance to the union, led by descendants of James II and VII including Bonnie Prince Charlie, continued until 1746.


title: Scottish independence

text: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed by the Acts of Union 1800, which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland. Following the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the war, Ireland was partitioned into two states: Southern Ireland, which opted to become independent (and is now known as Ireland), and Northern Ireland, which – given its geographical extent which tended to ensure a Unionist majority – chose to remain within the United Kingdom.


title: Scottish independence

text: The "Home Rule" movement for a Scottish Assembly was first taken up in 1853 by the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights, a body close to the Conservative Party. A key element in this movement was the comparison with Ireland. The original movement broadened its political appeal and soon began to receive Liberal Party backing. In 1885, the post of Secretary for Scotland and the Scottish Office were re-established to promote Scotland's interests and express its concerns to the UK Parliament. In 1886, however, Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone introduced the Irish Home Rule Bill. It was not regarded as an immediate constitutional priority however, particularly when the Irish Home Rule Bill was defeated in the House of Commons.


title: Scottish independence

text: Immediately before the First World War, the Liberal Government led by H. H. Asquith supported the concept of "Home Rule all round", whereby Scottish home rule would follow the Irish home rule proposed in the Government of Ireland Act 1914. Asquith believed that there was an iniquity in that the component parts of the United Kingdom could come together to act together in common purposes, but those components could not deal with internal matters that did not require consent across the UK. This was not a nationalist philosophy, but instead Asquith was acting in the belief that federalism was the "true basis of union" and that centralising power in Westminster was the "worst of all political blunders". A Scottish Home Rule bill was first presented to Parliament in 1913, but its progress was soon ended as Parliament focused on emergency measures necessitated by the First World War.


title: Scottish independence

text: Unlike Ireland, which rebelled in the Easter Rising and fought a War of Independence, Scotland did not resist central rule. There was, however, a persistent demand for Scottish home rule. The Scottish Office was relocated to St Andrew's House in Edinburgh during the 1930s. The Scottish Covenant was a petition to the UK Government asking for home rule. It was first proposed in 1930 by John MacCormick and formally written in 1949. The petition "was eventually signed by two million people" (the population of Scotland was recorded as 5,100,000 in the 1951 UK Census). The covenant was ignored by the main political parties. Also in 1950, the Stone of Destiny was removed from Westminster Abbey by a group of Scottish nationalist students.


title: Scottish independence

text: The question of full independence, or the less controversial home rule, did not re-enter the political mainstream until 1960, after the famous Wind of Change speech by Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. This speech marked the start of a rapid decolonisation in Africa and the end of the British Empire. The UK had already suffered the international humiliation of the 1956 Suez Crisis, which showed that it was no longer the superpower it had been before World War II. For many in Scotland, this served to undermine one of the principal raisons d'être for the United Kingdom and also symbolised the end of popular imperialism and the Imperial unity that had united the then-prominent Scottish Unionist Party. The Unionist Party subsequently suffered a steady decline in support.


title: Scottish independence

text: The Scottish National Party (SNP) won their second-ever seat in the House of Commons in 1967, when Winnie Ewing was the unexpected winner of the 1967 Hamilton by-election. The seat was previously a safe Labour Party seat, and this victory brought the SNP to national prominence, leading to Edward Heath's 1968 Declaration of Perth and the establishment of the Kilbrandon Commission. The discovery of North Sea oil off the east coast of Scotland in 1970 further invigorated the debate over Scottish independence. The SNP organised a hugely successful campaign entitled "It's Scotland's oil", emphasising how the discovery of oil could benefit Scotland's struggling deindustrialising economy and its populace. At the February 1974 general election, seven SNP MPs were elected. The general election resulted in a hung parliament, so Prime Minister Harold Wilson called a second election for October 1974, when the SNP performed even better than in February, winning 11 seats and obtaining over 30% of the total vote in Scotland.


title: Scottish independence

text: In January 1974, the Conservative government had commissioned the McCrone report, written by Professor Gavin McCrone, a leading government economist, to report on the viability of an independent Scotland. He concluded that oil would have given an independent Scotland one of the strongest currencies in Europe. The report went on to say that officials advised government ministers on how to take "the wind out of the SNP sails". Handed over to the incoming Labour government and classified as secret because of Labour fears over the surge in Scottish National Party popularity, the document came to light only in 2005, when the SNP obtained the report under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.


title: Scottish independence

text: The Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson, won the October 1974 general election with the very narrow majority of only three seats. Following their election to Parliament, the SNP MPs pressed for the creation of a Scottish Assembly: a viewpoint which was given added credibility by the conclusions of the Kilbrandon Commission. However, opponents demanded that a referendum be held on the issue. Although the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party both officially supported devolution, support was split in both parties. Labour was divided between those who favoured devolution and those who wanted to maintain a full central Westminster government. In the SNP, there was division between those who saw devolution as a stepping stone to independence and those who feared it might detract from that ultimate goal. The resignation of Harold Wilson from office in 1976 brought James Callaghan to power, but his small majority was eroded by several by-election losses, and the government became increasingly unpopular. Deals were made with the SNP and Plaid Cymru to hold referendums on devolution in exchange for their support, helping to prolong the government's life.


title: Scottish independence

text: The result of the referendum in Scotland was a narrow majority in favour of devolution (52% to 48%), but a condition of the referendum was that 40% of the total electorate should vote in favour in order to make it valid. But the turnout was only 63.6%, so only 32.9% of the electorate voted "Yes". The Scotland Act 1978 was consequently repealed in March 1979 by a vote of 301–206 in Parliament. In the wake of the referendum, the supporters of the bill conducted a protest campaign under the slogan "Scotland said yes". They argued that the 40% rule was undemocratic and that the referendum results justified the establishment of the assembly. Campaigners for a "No" vote countered that voters had been told before the referendum that failing to vote was as good as a "No". It was therefore incorrect to conclude that the relatively low turnout was entirely due to voter apathy.


title: Scottish independence

text: In protest, the SNP withdrew their support from the government. A motion of no confidence was then tabled by the Conservatives and supported by the SNP, the Liberals and Ulster Unionists. It passed by one vote on 28 March 1979, forcing the May 1979 general election, which was won by the Conservatives led by Margaret Thatcher. Prime Minister Callaghan described the decision of the SNP to bring down the Labour government as "turkeys voting for Christmas". The SNP group was reduced from 11 MPs to 2 at the 1979 general election, while devolution was opposed by the Conservative governments led by Margaret Thatcher and John Major.


title: Scottish independence

text: Supporters of Scottish independence continued to hold mixed views on the Home Rule movement which included many supporters of union who wanted devolution within the framework of the United Kingdom. Some saw it as a stepping stone to independence, while others wanted to go straight for independence.


title: Scottish independence

text: In the years of the Conservative government after 1979, the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly was established, eventually publishing the Claim of Right 1989. This then led to the Scottish Constitutional Convention. The convention promoted consensus on devolution on a cross-party basis, though the Conservative Party refused to co-operate and the Scottish National Party withdrew from the discussions when it became clear that the convention was unwilling to discuss Scottish independence as a constitutional option. Arguments against devolution and the Scottish Parliament, levelled mainly by the Conservative Party, were that the Parliament would create a "slippery slope" to Scottish independence and provide the pro-independence Scottish National Party with a route to government. Prime Minister John Major campaigned during the 1997 general election on the slogan "72 hours to save the union". His party ultimately suffered the worst electoral defeat in 91 years.


title: Scottish independence

text: The Labour Party won the 1997 general election in a landslide, and Donald Dewar as Secretary of State for Scotland agreed to the proposals for a Scottish Parliament. A referendum was held in September and 74.3% of those who voted approved the devolution plan (44.87% of the electorate). The Parliament of the United Kingdom subsequently approved the Scotland Act 1998 which created an elected Scottish Parliament with control over most domestic policy. In May 1999, Scotland held its first election for a devolved parliament, and in July 1999, the Scottish Parliament held session for the first time since the previous parliament had been adjourned in 1707, after a gap of 292 years. Donald Dewar of the Labour Party subsequently became the First Minister of Scotland, while the Scottish National Party became the main opposition party. The egalitarian song "A Man's A Man for A' That", by Robert Burns, was performed at the opening ceremony.


title: Scottish independence

text: The Scottish Parliament is a unicameral legislature comprising 129 members. 73 members (57 pc) represent individual constituencies and are elected on a first past the post system. 56 members (43 pc) are elected in eight different electoral regions by the additional member system. Members serve for a four-year term. The monarch appoints one Member of the Scottish Parliament, on the nomination of the Parliament, to be First Minister, with the convention being that the leader of the party with the largest number of seats is appointed First Minister, although any member who can command the confidence of a majority of the chamber could conceivably be appointed First Minister. All other Ministers are appointed and dismissed by the First Minister, and together they make up the Scottish Government, the executive arm of government.


title: Scottish independence

text: The Scottish Parliament has legislative authority for all non-reserved matters relating to Scotland, and has a limited power to vary income tax, nicknamed the Tartan Tax, a power it did not exercise and which was later replaced by wider tax-varying powers. The Scottish Parliament can refer devolved matters back to Westminster to be considered as part of United Kingdom-wide legislation by passing a Legislative Consent Motion if United Kingdom-wide legislation is considered to be more appropriate for certain issues. The programmes of legislation enacted by the Scottish Parliament since 1999 have seen a divergence in the provision of public services compared to the rest of the United Kingdom. For instance, the costs of a university education, and care services for the elderly are free at point of use in Scotland, while fees are paid in the rest of the UK. Scotland was the first country in the UK to ban smoking in enclosed public places in March 2006.


title: Scottish independence

text: In its manifesto for the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, the Scottish National Party (SNP) pledged to hold an independence referendum by 2010. After winning the election, the SNP-controlled Scottish Government published a white paper entitled "Choosing Scotland's Future", which outlined options for the future of Scotland, including independence. Scottish Labour, the Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Liberal Democrats opposed a referendum offering independence as an option. Prime Minister Gordon Brown also publicly attacked the independence option. The three main parties opposed to independence instead formed a Commission on Scottish Devolution, chaired by Kenneth Calman. This reviewed devolution and considered all constitutional options apart from independence. In August 2009, the Scottish Government announced that the Referendum (Scotland) Bill, 2010, which would detail the question and conduct of a possible referendum on the issue of independence, would be part of its legislative programme for 2009–10. The Bill was not expected to be passed, because of the SNP's status as a minority government and the opposition of all other major parties in Parliament. In September 2010, the Scottish Government announced that no referendum would occur before the 2011 Scottish Parliament election.


title: Scottish independence

text: The SNP won an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament at the 2011 Scottish election. First Minister Alex Salmond stated his desire to hold a referendum "in the second half of the parliament", which would place it in 2014 or 2015. In January 2012, the UK Government offered to provide the Scottish Parliament with the specific powers to hold a referendum, providing it was "fair, legal and decisive". Negotiations continued between the two governments until October 2012, when the Edinburgh Agreement was reached. The Scottish Independence Referendum (Franchise) Act 2013 was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 27 June 2013 and received Royal Assent on 7 August 2013. On 15 November 2013, the Scottish Government published "Scotland's Future", a 670-page white paper laying out the case for independence and the means through which Scotland might become an independent country.


title: Scottish independence

text: After a protracted period of negotiation, a public debate between Salmond and Better Together leader Alistair Darling was arranged. On the morning before the televised debate, a joint statement, pledging greater devolved powers to Scotland in the event of a "No" vote, was signed by Prime Minister David Cameron (Leader of the Conservative Party), Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (Leader of the Liberal Democrats), and Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband (Leader of the Labour Party).


title: Scottish independence

text: The BBC website announced the final result of the referendum at 06:24 on 19 September 2014: the "No" vote prevailed with 55% (2,001,926) of the votes from an overall voter turnout of 84.5%. Chief counting officer Mary Pitcaithly stated: "It is clear that the majority of people voting have voted No to the referendum question." The "Yes" vote received 45% (1,617,989) support—the winning total needed was 1,852,828. Results were compiled from 32 council areas, with Glasgow backing independence—voting 53.5% "Yes" to 46.5% "No" (turnout in the area was 75%)—and Edinburgh voting against independence by 61% to 39% (turnout in the area was 84%). Darling stated in his post-result speech, "The silent have spoken", while Salmond stated, "I accept the verdict of the people, and I call on all of Scotland to follow suit in accepting the democratic verdict".


title: Scottish independence

text: In 2016, the UK voted to leave the EU in the Brexit referendum, however Scotland voted to remain by 62% to 38%. Leading pro-independence figures suggested a second independence referendum. For example, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon said that she was looking at all options to "secure our place in the EU", and that a second referendum was "highly likely". However, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Theresa May said that "The prime minister and the government does not believe that there is a mandate for [a second referendum]. There was one only two years ago. There was an extremely high turnout and there was a resounding result in favour of Scotland remaining in the UK".


title: Scottish independence

text: At the 2019 United Kingdom general election, the SNP won 48 out of 59 Scottish seats. Sturgeon asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson for his consent to hold another referendum. However, Johnson declined her request. He said that Sturgeon and her predecessor Alex Salmond had promised that the 2014 referendum would be a "once in a generation" vote.


title: Scottish independence

text: Shortly before the UK left the European single market, the Boris Johnson regime sought through the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 to restrict the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. The primary purpose of the act is to constrain the capacity of the devolved institutions to use their regulatory autonomy. The legislation undermines the capability of the Scottish legislature to make different economic or social choices from those made in Westminster. In a January 2021 editorial concerning rising support for independence and its potential to break up the union, the "Financial Times" indicated that the Internal Market Act may serve to further the cause of independence: This view was mirrored by the Scottish Government in a report published in March 2021, which stated that the act is "radically undermining the powers and democratic accountability of the Scottish Parliament."


title: Scottish independence

text: In January 2021, Nicola Sturgeon said that another referendum would be held if pro-independence parties won a majority of seats at the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. Opposition parties criticised the SNP, stating that they were putting independence ahead of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Although the SNP fell one seat short of winning outright, the eight seats won by the Scottish Greens meant that pro-independence parties had won a majority of seats in the election. Speaking after the election, both SNP and Conservative representatives said that a referendum would not occur during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Scottish independence

text: The Scottish Government plans to hold a second independence referendum before the end of the current Scottish Parliament. Nicola Sturgeon has indicated the vote would be held by 2023. Boris Johnson has stated that he would not grant authorisation for a referendum, but the SNP has indicated it is prepared to hold a referendum regardless. According to a poll of 1000 voters conducted for "Politico Europe", 43% said they agreed that Scotland should only hold a second independence referendum if the U.K. government agrees to it.


title: Scottish independence

text: In January 2022, "The Herald" reported that the Scottish Government were paying eleven civil servants a total of £700,000 per year to plan for Scottish independence. In its response to the newspaper, the government stated "As set out in the 2021/22 Programme for Government (PfG), the Scottish Government will work to ensure that a legitimate and constitutional referendum can be held within this Parliament, and if the Covid crisis is over, within the first half of this Parliament." The Scottish Conservatives constitution spokesperson Donald Cameron and Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Alex Cole-Hamilton opposed the spending. Cole-Hamilton said "to spend more than £500,000 on a fool's errand of another prospectus for independence makes it less of a white paper and more of a white elephant" and suggested the SNP and Green Party are "off their rockers". SNP President Michael Russell remarked that the SNP and Green Party's victory in the election indicated they have a mandate to hold a second referendum to make Scotland an independent country.


title: Scottish independence

text: On 28 June 2022, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon proposed to hold a second Scottish independence referendum on 19 October 2023, provided that the legality and constitutionality of the referendum is guaranteed. She set out a three-stage process, starting with the Scottish Government making a request for a Section 30 order (parliamentary powers) to hold a referendum. If that was rejected, it would ask the UK Supreme Court to adjudicate whether the Scottish Parliament could legislate for a referendum without that transfer of powers. If that was also rejected, she wished to turn the next UK general election into a "de facto" referendum.


title: Scottish independence

text: A week later, Prime Minister Boris Johnson rejected the request for a Section 30 transfer of powers. The Scottish Government lodged a case with the Supreme Court to determine whether the powers to hold a referendum are within the competence of the Scottish Parliament. A hearing took place on 11 and 12 October 2022,


title: Scottish independence

text: Before the Supreme Court hearing Nicola Sturgeon said that, in the eventuality of the Court ruling that the Scottish Parliament did not have the authority to act unilaterally, the SNP would contest the next UK general election as a "de facto" referendum on independence. This tactic has been previously used by Irish and Catalan nationalists. It has been criticised on the grounds that "elections and [...] referendums [...] are quite distinct" and that general elections "[are] often about a range of issues" and "it's not for a political party to dictate the terms of an election". Prof Jim Gallagher, chair of Our Scottish Future, argues that "whatever UK government emerges won't treat it as having been an independence referendum".


title: Scottish independence

text: While in Northern Ireland, the system of devolution includes a provision for independence referendums, under the Scottish devolution framework, there is no equivalent provision. Therefore, Scottish independence would need to be enacted exceptionally by a compentent authority. Due to the UK having no codified constitution, there is dispute over which authorities have competence to enact Scottish independence or an independence referendum.


title: Scottish independence

text: The UK Parliament retains parliamentary sovereignty over the United Kingdom as a whole. Under this principle, the UK Parliament could enact Scottish independence without the need for a referendum. In "AXA General Insurance Ltd and others v HM Advocate and others", the Deputy President of the Supreme Court, Lord Hope of Craighead, stated that "the sovereignty of the Crown in Parliament [...] is the bedrock of the British constitution. Sovereignty remains with the United Kingdom Parliament." However, the application of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty to Scotland has been disputed. In "MacCormick v The Lord Advocate", the Lord President of the Court of Session, Lord Cooper of Culross stated "obiter dicta" that "the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish Constitutional Law." It has been suggested that the doctrine of popular sovereignty, proclaimed in the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, articulated by Scottish political thinkers like George Buchanan and reasserted by the Claim of Right 1989 (signed by nearly every Labour and Liberal Democrat MP in Scotland at the time), is of greater relevance to Scotland.


title: Scottish independence

text: The legality of any UK constituent country attaining "de facto" independence or declaring unilateral independence outside the framework of British constitutional convention is debatable. Under international law, a unilateral declaration might satisfy the principle of the "declarative theory of statehood", but not the "constitutive theory of statehood". Some legal opinion following the Supreme Court of Canada's decision on what steps Quebec would need to take to secede is that Scotland would be unable to unilaterally declare independence under international law if the UK Government permitted a referendum on an unambiguous question on secession. The SNP have not argued for a unilateral act, but rather state that a positive vote for independence in a referendum would have "enormous moral and political force... impossible for a future [Westminster] government to ignore", and hence would give the Scottish Government a mandate to negotiate for the passage of an act of the UK Parliament providing for Scotland's secession, in which Westminster renounces its sovereignty over Scotland.


title: Scottish independence

text: The United Nations Charter enshrines the right of peoples to self-determination, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also guarantees peoples' right to change nationality; the UK is a signatory to both documents. Politicians in both the Scottish and UK parliaments have endorsed the right of the Scottish people to self-determination, including former UK Prime Ministers John Major and Margaret Thatcher.


title: Scottish independence

text: The issue of the Scottish Government's power to hold and the Scottish Parliament's competence to legislate for an independence referendum is a subject of intense debate both inside and outside Scotland. In November 2022 the UK Supreme Court gave a judgment that the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to legislate for an independence referendum. The Scotland Act 1998 reserved powers over "the Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England" to the UK Parliament. Any provision is outwith the competence of the Scottish Parliament if "it relates to reserved matters" under Section 29(2) of the Act. This formed the basis of the UK Supreme Court's judgment on the Scottish Parliament's competence to legislate on the matter.


title: Scottish independence

text: To ensure the undisputed constitutional legality of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the Scottish and UK Governments signed the Edinburgh Agreement stating that both would accept and "continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome [of the referendum], whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom". The agreement, with the subsequent approval of the UK Parliament, gave the Scottish Parliament special legal authority to hold an independence referendum before the end of 2014.


title: Scottish independence

text: No such agreement has been reached in respect of a second referendum, throwing doubt over its legal status. In December 2019, Martin Keatings, a pro-independence independent candidate, sought a declarator to the Court of Session. However Lady Carmichael said the case lacked standing due to its hypothetical nature. Nevertheless, Mr Keatings brought an appeal forward in April 2021 as the Scottish Government had now published a bill, however this appeal was lost.


title: Scottish independence

text: With the publication of the draft Independence Referendum Bill on 22 March 2021 the question of legality was raised again. On 28 June 2022, Sturgeon proposed to hold a referendum in 2023, provided that the legality and constitutionality of the referendum is guaranteed. The Scottish Government stated that their proposed referendum is "consultative, not self-executing". In UK law, a referendum can be consultative (such as the Brexit referendum) or determinative (such as the AV referendum, which, if passed, would have automatically brought in provisions for the Alternative Vote). The Scotland Act does not explicitly state whether non-binding referendums on reserve powers were reserved. In the Scottish Government's written case published in July 2022, the Lord Advocate observed that "the Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England has been superseded as a matter of law and exists only as an historical fact. The [Scotland Act] would therefore reserve something that no longer exists."


title: Scottish independence

text: The Scottish Government lodged a case with the Supreme Court to determine whether the powers to hold a referendum are within the competence of the Scottish Parliament, and a hearing took place on 11 and 12 October 2022. A month later, the UK Supreme Court gave a judgment that the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to hold an independence referendum because it relates to the Union of England and Scotland and the sovereignty of the UK Parliament, which are matters reserved to the UK Parliament.


title: Scottish independence

text: In 2014, the Scottish Government argued that "[Scotland's] approach [to culture] has been, and will continue to be, distinct from that of Westminster". The Scottish Government argued that Scottish independence would give the Scottish Government more powers to encourage culture and creative sectors. In the event of independence, the Scottish Government planned to increase domestic creative production opportunities, such as by setting up a new national broadcaster, while maintaining access to current TV channels and with no additional cost to viewers and listeners.


title: Scottish independence

text: The concept of a democratic deficit is the most frequently invoked argument in favour of independence. England has a majority (84%) of the UK population. Thus, constituency results for Scotland rarely affect the outcome of general elections. From the 1960s onwards, average voting patterns in Scotland and England have diverged. Scotland has only elected a majority of governing MPs in three of the 11 UK general elections since 1979. Devolution was intended to close this deficit, but Brexit, which happened despite 62% of voters in Scotland voting against it, has highlighted this concern. The Conservative Party, which often forms the UK Government by winning general elections, has not won a plurality of seats in Scotland since 1955.


title: Scottish independence

text: Underpinning the democratic deficit argument is an assumption that Scotland is a nation with a right to self-determination. Nationalists argue that, were Scotland independent, Scotland's population would possess full decision-making power in regard to the political affairs of its nation. Alex Salmond stated in a May 2012 launch that "the people who live in Scotland are best placed to make the decisions that affect Scotland."