UK's Orkney Islands want to join Norway over financial neglect

The council leader of Britain's Orkney Islands, an archipelago about 10 miles off the north coast of Scotland, said that the islands are considering "alternative forms of governance". This could include becoming part of Norway.

Orkney is made up of around 70 islands and has a population of 22,000 people. Council leader James Stockan has said that the islands are considering their future in light of financial neglect by the Scottish and British governments for years.

Stockan believes that Orkney's historic Nordic connections present options. The islands were part of Norway for about 500 years until 1472.

Stockan says Orcadians regularly ask him for a return to Norway, a country that has given the islands shared cultural affinity.

"At the moment we're not getting that support coming through from other governments and we would just like to see what other alternatives are there for us," Stockan told BBC Radio on Monday.

A row over funding for new ferries between the islands and Scotland has brought Orkney's situation to a head.

Stockan has proposed a motion for the council. The motion is to "explore options for alternative models of governance that provide greater fiscal security and economic opportunity".

Councillors will decide whether to back it or not on Tuesday.

There are options other than rejoining Norway. These are British arrangements, like becoming a crown dependency, the system of government in the Channel Islands. Another option is of an arrangement akin to Faroe Islands, a self-governing part of Denmark.

In 2014, Scotland rejected ending the more than 300-year-old union with England in a referendum. Orkney has since looked at strengthening its autonomy.

Stockan said that in spite of a large part of Britain's North Sea oil output being processed on Orkney, the islands haven't seen sufficient benefits.

With new opportunities from offshore wind farms, he wants the islands to see a greater return.

Stockan wasn't clear about how Orkney's return to Norway, 250 miles across the North Sea, would work.

So is it final?

Not quite. Reuters cited an e-mail from a spokesperson from Norway's foreign ministry.

"This is a domestic and constitutional British matter. We have no view regarding this motion," said the e-mail as reported by Reuters.

Stockan said there were loose ends to be tied up from 1469 over the dowry which Christian I, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, failed to pay when his daughter married Scotland's James III, gifting Orkney instead.

There was no mention of the dowry from 554 years ago in the UK government's response to the question over Orkney's future.

"We will always be stronger together as one United Kingdom," a government spokesman said, as quoted by Reuters.

(With inputs from agencies)

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