美国有线新闻 CNN 苏格兰准备进行第二次独立公投

AZUZ: Next up, political tensions, debates, divisions in another part of Europe. We're moving west to Scotland. It's part of the United Kingdom but for how long is the question being asked.

Last June, people in the U.K. voted to leave the European Union. This was known as the Brexit, the British exit from the E.U., and Britain's process of actually separating from the union is ongoing 1. But most voters in Scotland wanted Britain to remain in the European Union. They weren't happy with the outcome of the Brexit vote.

Now, a Scottish politician named Nicola Sturgeon wants her country to have a new vote on whether Scotland should stay part of Britain. It's not certain when or if that will happen. Scotland can't have an independence vote until it's approved by the British government.

But the reason why this is getting so much attention is because it could inspire similar events in other parts of Europe. Will people in Catalonia and the Basque country, parts of Spain, be emboldened 2 to separate from Spain? Will voters in Flanders, a region of Belgium, try to break off from that country? Will Northern Ireland separate from the U.K. and join the Republican of Ireland?

People in all these places are closely watching Scotland.

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: She's shrouded 3 in scaffolding, the RSS Discovery which sailed Captain Scott from Dundee to Antarctica in 1901. Her mast dismantled 4, workmen tapping away at her aging bow to repair and restore, as Nicola Sturgeon chips away at a more ancient structure, the 300-year-old union between Scotland and England.

In Scotland's 2014 independence referendum, Dundee was known as the yes city, yes for a future outside of the U.K. But even here in bonnie Dundee, the spirit of patriotism 5 burns both ways for Scotland and for a United Kingdom.

Scotland voted 45 percent to 55 percent in the first referendum. That's 45 percent yes for independence, 55 percent no, let's stay in the union. The polls now are more evenly split and, of course, anything can happen over the course of a campaign. But what it does suggest is that a new referendum would split Scotland pretty much down the middle, in the same way that Brexit split Britain.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has accused Nicola Sturgeon of playing games with politics. But Scotland's quest for independence long predates Sturgeon's Scottish National Party. Centuries of warfare 6 centering around Edinburgh's historical castle, then union, now a high stakes political battle which risks the breakup of the U.K., and one which, given the pressures of Brexit, Westminster may not have the energy to fight.

Diana Magnay, CNN, Edinburgh.