There is nothing to stop the Queen from speaking but it’s unlikely that she would, given that she sees “the referendum as a matter entirely for the Scottish people to decide” (sounds familiar). In 1977, when Scotland and Wales were voting on devolved national assemblies, the Queen spoke out in one of her Silver Jubilee speeches to deliver a warning against the “aspirations” of devolved power, adding “I cannot forget I was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and of Northern Ireland. Perhaps this Jubilee, is a time to remind ourselves of the benefits which union has conferred, at home and in our international dealings, on the inhabitants of all parts of the UK.” The Queen would have to be invited to speak by the British Prime Minister. While she’s not prevented by law from voting, it is “considered unconstitutional for the sovereign and her or his heir to do so”. Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond says he wants the Queen to remain head of state of a separate Scotland “as her ancestors were” although many Scottish Nationalists are republicans and want to get rid of the monarchy. Mr Salmond claims recent polls show Scots’ enthusiasm to have Queen Elizabeth of England as “our Queen of Scots.” [Drawn from articles in The Daily Telegraph (London), 9 September 2014]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is nothing to stop the Queen from speaking but it’s unlikely that she would, given that she sees “the referendum as a matter entirely for the Scottish people to decide” (sounds familiar). In 1977, when Scotland and Wales were voting on devolved national…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18","wpcat-18-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1513,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512\/revisions\/1513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenrep.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}