independentScotland and the World
Would Scotland keep the King?
The short answer
This is one of the easiest questions on the site, because the world has answered it fourteen times over. The King is head of state of fourteen independent countries besides the UK - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica and ten others (House of Commons Library). Nobody argues Canada isn't independent because the King is on its coins.
So independence does not mean losing the monarchy, and it does not mean keeping it either. It means the question - like currency, like NATO, like the EU - finally belongs to the people of Scotland.
Shared crown, separate states
The arrangement even has deep Scottish roots. The Union of the Crowns came in 1603, when James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne; the union of parliaments didn't follow until 1707. For a full century, Scotland and England were separate states sharing a monarch - it's how this island spent the seventeenth century. An independent Scotland that retained the King would simply be resuming a constitutional position Scotland itself invented.
That was the 2014 prospectus's proposal: the white paper envisaged the monarchy continuing, with the King as head of state of an independent Scotland exactly as he is of Canada or Australia (Scotland's Future).
Or not - the choice is real
Plenty in the independence movement disagree, openly. The Alba Party voted by an overwhelming majority for an independent Scotland to move to an elected head of state - a president on the Irish model - once Queen Elizabeth's reign had ended (STV News). Polling has long suggested Scots are cooler on the monarchy than the UK average. Others feel a real attachment to a crown that is, after all, partly Scotland's own.
This site takes no side, and the precedents say it doesn't have to be settled now. Barbados kept the monarchy for 55 years after independence and then became a republic in 2021, calmly, by decision of its own parliament; Jamaica and others have similar debates under way. The sequencing is normal everywhere: independence first, and the head of state whenever - and however - the country chooses. A monarchist and a republican can vote the same way on independence, because independence is what gives each of them a vote that counts on the question they care about.
So what's the real question?
Not whether Scotland keeps the King - fourteen countries show either answer works, and the seventeenth century shows Scotland has done it before.
The real question is the one this site always lands on: who decides? Today, the shape of the monarchy - succession, funding, role - is settled at Westminster, and Scotland's view carries the weight of 8% of it. After independence, keep the crown or elect a president, the decision is made in Scotland, by people the outcome has to live with. That's not a threat to monarchists or a promise to republicans. It's just the ordinary dignity of a country: choosing its own head of state, or choosing not to change one.
Related: Wouldn't more devolution do? · Could an independent Scotland rejoin the EU?
Take it with you
Facts for sharing - each button copies the line, with its source and a link back to this page.
- The King is head of state of fourteen independent countries besides the UK - including Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Independence and monarchy are separate questions (House of Commons Library)
- The Union of the Crowns came in 1603, the union of parliaments in 1707. A shared monarch without a shared parliament isn't a novelty - it's how this island spent the seventeenth century
- The 2014 white paper proposed keeping the monarchy; the Alba Party voted overwhelmingly for an elected head of state. The independence movement contains both views - because it's a decision for after (Scotland's Future; STV News)
- Barbados kept the monarchy for 55 years after independence, then became a republic by vote of its own parliament in 2021. The sequencing is normal: independence first, head of state whenever the country chooses