Free the Shetlands!

On Tuesday night in Lerwick, capital of the Shetland Islands, hundreds of men dressed as Vikings will parade through the centre of town, carrying torches to set fire to a wooden long ship in a festival known as Up Helly Aa. All will march to a repertoire of battle songs, with blood-curdling lyrics. ‘Our galley is the People’s Right, the dragon of the free’ runs the main hymn of the evening. ‘Sons of warriors and sages: when the fight for freedom rages, be bold and strong as they!’ And not even Alex Salmond would be bold enough to suggest that they are singing about Scotland.

The people of Orkney and Shetland share little of Salmond’s enthusiasm for independence, as was reflected in the 1997 devolution referendum. It is hard to join a tide of Edinburgh-focused nationalism if your nearest city is Bergen. And if Scotland does vote to secede from Britain, might it be the start of a further unravelling? On what grounds could you stop Orkney, the Shetlands, even the Hebrides claiming their own independence? And what effect would this have on Scottish oil revenues and the ability of Edinburgh to pay the pensions which London no longer funded?

The Shetlands were pawned by King Christian of Norway centuries ago, and no one has bothered to ask lawyers how a claim to independence would work. But the Salmond principle is clear: if a country votes for separation, it should be granted it — together with a ‘geographical share’ of the oil revenues decided by drawing an imaginary border across the North Sea. Using such methods, Salmond is laying claim to 90 per cent of the oil revenue. Were the Orcadians and Shetlanders to do so, then Lerwick (pop 7,000) might well end up as the Dubai of Europe.