How a demographic time-bomb threatens to fracture the British Union | Older pro-UK voters are being replaced by younger Scottish nationalists, and now groundbreaking research suggests that their support for independence won’t fade with age

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1. >This glaring reality of Scottish politics has spawned what academics politely call an “actuarial argument”, that old unionist voters will gradually be replaced by younger nationalists, that there is a demographic time-bomb ticking away under the UK.

   >It has also sparked a counter theory, that Scots will grow out of independence as they age, as they start to worry about prices, or property, or pensions.

   >These two positions have been constantly stated and restated by Scotland’s bickering political tribes. But they have never been empirically tested.

   >Until now.

   >**An academic at Glasgow University has crunched nearly a quarter of a century worth of responses from the Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey to see if Scots become more unionist as they get older.cHis conclusion: they do not.**

2. The UK as a state was always linked to the project of empire. Without that project, there’s not necessarily much holding it together, apart from nostalgia.

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