Is Scotland the first country to vote against its own independence?

by Jakuskrzypk
staahb

Short answer: No. Quebec voted "no" with a 50.58% of the votes in 1995. Also, Puerto Rico, Northern Ireland and New Caledonia have held referendums where the majority voted no.

These cases have traits that are similar to each other (exept for New Caledonia, which I am not familiar). They either speak a different language than the majority (french in Quebec, spanish in Puerto Rico), have a sizable population of a different religion/nationality (catholic irish in Northern Ireland) There are however sizable differences between the would-be independent regions - different sizes and forms of their economy, demography, population and history. The mechanisms behind Northern Irelands referendum are different than Quebecs.

Also note that Puerto Rico and Quebec have held multiple referendums on independence, all of which have failed. These are sometimes called neverendums.

My books referring to these independence referendums are sadly in another country, so I can't provide specific sources at the moment.

Georgy_K_Zhukov

Sorry, we don't allow throughout history questions. These tend to produce threads which are collections of trivia, not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your question and submit it again.