REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, LONDON - The United Kingdom has existed for more than three centuries, and its territorial integrity has buckled only once - when Irish nationalists created a breakaway republic almost 100 years ago.

But an independence vote in Scotland in September and a possible referendum on whether to leave the European Union in 2017 mean the world's sixth largest economy now faces two consecutive threats, promising at the very least short-term volatility and, in the view of opponents of an EU exit, serious long-term damage.

If - and it is a fairly big if - Scotland votes for independence, the United Kingdom will unravel. But the "date with destiny", as Scottish nationalists like to call it, is far from a purely domestic affair. If the break-up happens, it may affect whether the rest of the British state votes to leave the EU. Some argue that, without the relatively europhile Scots, 'Brexit' is more likely.

On the line is Britain's 2.5-trillion USD economy, London's position as the only financial capital to rival New York, North Sea oil, the future of Britain's nuclear deterrent, and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

The questions being asked in the two votes are different but related and the debates could influence one another and in turn shape the future of the UK.

"It is quite extraordinary. This is happening in a country which was long regarded, and regarded itself, as a beacon of constitutional stability," said Alan Trench, professor of politics at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.

"So suddenly to have moved from stasis into a sequence of very febrile and interlocking debates is remarkable and may say something about just how unstable that apparent stability really was."

The formal name for the sovereign state that includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The voluntary union of England, which had subsumed Wales, with Scotland in 1707 created the Kingdom of Great Britain. It became the United Kingdom in 1800 after a formal union with subject Ireland.

The UK traces its roots as a state to the establishment of Scottish and English kingdoms in the 9th and 10th centuries and has been a member of what is today the EU since 1973.

Ikuti Whatsapp Channel Republika