Fresh blow for Salmond: Now the Pope backs Scottish NO vote after Hillary Clinton, Obama and JK Rowling
- Pontiff said 'all division worries me' in shock intervention into debate
- Comes after Hillary Clinton said she would 'hate' Britain to 'lose Scotland'
- Also intervenes in growing UK rift with EU, claiming Brussels needs Britain
- Clinton's remarks come after President Obama backed 'No' campaign
- Harry Potter author JK Rowling this week donated £1m to pro-union camp
The Pope entered Scotland’s independence debate yesterday, saying he would be worried by a vote to split up the UK.
Pope Francis said the break-up of countries such as the former Yugoslavia that had been forced together was justified because its people were so diverse.
But asked about breakaway regions such as Scotland and Catalonia in states where people had long been united, he said the case for independence was ‘not so clear’.
Pope Francis and the US President Barack Obama has both spoken out against Scottish independence, in a blow for Alex Salmond
In remarks that may resonate with Scotland’s Catholics, he said: ‘All division worries me. There will be cases that are just, but the secession of a nation without a history of enforced unity must be taken very carefully and analysed case by case.’
He is the latest high-profile figure to question Scottish independence ahead of the referendum in less than three months.
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Barack Obama dealt a blow to the nationalist cause last week by urging Scotland not to leave the UK, while Hillary Clinton, who is tipped to replace him as US president in 2016, told BBC’s Newsnight on Thursday: ‘I would hate to have you lose Scotland.’
Harry Potter author JK Rowling donated £1million to the Better Together campaign against independence this week.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told BBC Newsnight that she hoped Scotland would not leave the UK. She said a 'Yes' to independence vote would be a 'loss for both sides'
Pope Francis told La Vanguardia newspaper in Spain, where the debate about Catalonian independence has been boosted by events in Scotland: ‘There is independence through emancipation and through secession. Independence through emancipation includes the Americans, who emancipated themselves from the European states.
‘Independence of people through secession is a dismembering. Obviously, there are peoples with cultures so diverse that they cannot be connected. The Yugolsav case is very clear, but I wonder if it’s so clear in other cases, with other peoples who have been united up until now.’
Scottish National Party MSP Dave Thompson said: ‘We welcome the call by Pope Francis for voters to analyse the case for independence. Most people will conclude that independence is the surest route to a more socially just Scotland.’
Harry Potter author JK Rowling (left), with her husband Neil Murray, was the victim of vicious online abuse from supporters of Alex Salmond (right) after donating £1 million to the 'Better Together' no to independence campaign
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