The Orkney Islands' wantaway council chief has mentioned that forging nearer hyperlinks with Norway is simply "one of many options" the archipelago may discover if it broke away from Scotland.

Local councillors have voted to again a movement to discover the long run governance of the islands, which sit round 20 miles off Scotland's northeastern tip. It comes amid rising frustration over what Orcadians take into account to be a uncooked take care of regard to funding.

Much of the main target since then has been on recommendations that the islands may return to Norway - as they had been beneath Norwegian and Danish management till 1472. However, council chief James Stockan insists the islands have a smorgasbord of choices open to them - and appeared to recommend that self-governance is his most well-liked choice for the Orkneys' 22,000 inhabitants.

In a brand new interview, Stockan mentioned: "Norway is just just one of our options, one of the many.” And, to that end, he's heading off to Reykjavik next month.

He's attending the annual meeting of the West Nordic Council. The council is a partnership between hosts Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands – with the latter two being self-governing regions of the Kingdom of Denmark.

"What we would like is nearer hyperlinks," said Stockan. He said this had been cleared by the Scotland Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

However, Stockan has previously said that the Orkneys could also look to the south, if the islands broke away from Scottish governance - by seeking a better deal directly from Westminster. Earlier this month, he said: “There is a far bigger suite of options here – this could even be that we could get our money direct from the Treasury in London and look after our own future.”

But his latest interview suggests this option may not be the favoured one for many Orcadians. And it's clear that Stocken has little faith in the word of the UK's Governments on either side of Hadrian's Wall.

He said that "the governments of this nation will not be stepping as much as the plate to assist" the Orkneys. "We’ve time and time once more had damaged guarantees," Stockan lamented.

"I wrote to the First Minister [then Nicola Sturgeon, in late 2019] and solely acquired a reply when it was made public. I wrote to the prime minister for the primary time in my profession, asking for assist, and received an inappropriate response from a junior minister.

"Our community expects better. We feel undervalued.”

And it would seem Stocken has been irked by Downing Street's dismissive response to Orcadian dreams of independence. When asked last month, the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson simply said there was “no mechanism for the conferral of crown dependency or overseas territory status on any part of the UK".

“Fundamentally, we're stronger as one United Kingdom, we've got no plans to alter that,” added the PM's spokesperson.

Describing this as a "knee-jerk" response, Stockan mentioned: "The best response would have been, ‘Can we talk about this?’.”

It could appear that many on the island would prefer to look even further south than London - towards Brussels and the EU. However, Stockan perhaps appeared to suggest he was as just as disdainful and distrustful of European Commission, as he is of the UK and Scottish Governments.

Stockan told The Telegraph: "We had been one of many strongest ‘No’ votes of anyplace in Scotland in direction of independence [from the UK] within the 2014 referendum. We had been one of many strongest votes in favour of remaining within the EU.

"So while you mix these, you suppose, ‘Why on earth would we be looking at different government models?’ But it's as a result of we’ve misplaced confidence in governments doing issues for us.”