Politics of Scotland Politics of Scotland Scotland is a country which is currently in a political union with the rest of the United Kingdom. Having been directly governed by the UK Government Since 1707, a system of devolution was established in 1999, after the Scottish people voted by a firm majority to re-establish a primary law making Scottish Parliament in a referendum held in 1997. Scotland entered into a political union with England in 1707, and since then has sent representatives to the Palace of Westminster, which succeeded the Parliament of England to become the British Parliament. Currently, 59 Members of Parliament (MPs)
Acts of Union 1707 not mean James abandoned the idea; 17th-century religion and politics were closely linked and he viewed a unified Church of Scotland and England as the first step towards a centralised, Unionist state. The problem was that the two churches were very different in both structure and doctrine; Scottish bishops presided over Presbyterian structures but were doctrinal Calvinists who viewed many Church of England practices as little better than Catholicism. The religious policies followed by James and his son Charles I were intended as precursors to political union; resistance to this concept led to the 1638 National Covenant in Scotland and