A tiny isle off the coast of Britain’s northern-most island chain is to declare independence, claiming it had never been legally part of the country anyway, the Shetland News said on Thursday.
Forvik island’s only resident, Stuart Hill, said his new territory off the west coast of Shetland recognises neither the British government nor the European Union and should become a Crown dependency like the Channel Islands.
In other words, the rocky, one-hectare outcrop would be not be part of the United Kingdom, but run its own affairs and have no income, sales, property or corporation taxes.
The 65-year-old, known locally as “Captain Calamity” after being rescued on a doomed circumnavigation attempt of the British isles seven years ago, also plans to issue his own currency, the Forvik gulde, stamps and a flag.
Secession could inspire Shetland’s 22 000 other residents to follow suit and have positive benefits, particularly if they started demanding revenue from lucrative oil and gas extraction in the nearby waters, he said.
“Shetland’s relationship with the UK is based on the assumption that it is part of Scotland,” he was quoted as saying by the internet daily from his official residence — a two-man tent.
“That assumption is based on deception at the highest level and has been achieved by subterfuge and nobody can give a date on which it happened.
“By declaring Forvik a Crown dependency I am simply re-establishing the correct legal relationship between this part of Shetland and the Crown. By doing so I will prove that Shetland as a whole can get the same benefits and more — simply by asserting rights that already exist.”
Hill, who has published a declaration of independence, maintains that Shetland has been in constitutional limbo ever since King James III of Scotland was given the islands from King Christian of Denmark in 1469.
The British government had since appropriated fishing, oil extraction and other rights “without any prior right”, he added.
The Shetland archipelago begins 210km north-east of the Scottish mainland, consists of more than 100 islands and is 160km long.
Residents jealously guard their Viking heritage and have a closer bond with Norway than London or Edinburgh. — AFP