LONDON — Scotland can “regain what has been lost because of Brexit” by rejoining the EU as an independent nation, the Scottish government argued Friday. But it’s got plenty of big hurdles to clear first.
A new paper — written by senior officials working for the pro-independence government led by the Scottish National Party — sets out how an independent Scotland, no longer shackled to the U.K., could rejoin the bloc years after it was wrenched out by the Brexit referendum.
The paper comes, however, at a difficult time for the Scottish independence movement.
After losing a referendum on Scottish independence in 2014, the prospect of a second one appears more distant than ever. Declining polling numbers for the SNP, and the Westminster government’s long-running refusal to play ball both play a part. Thanks to the chaos that followed Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as Scottish first minister and the steady revival of the Scottish Labour Party, the SNP is also widely expected to lose seats in next year’s general election in what would be a further blow.
Nevertheless, the Scottish government believes it has a compelling case. Its paper is the latest in a series on what an independent Scotland would look like. They’re designed to boost the case for separation — support for which remains steady, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls — and to get it back in the headlines as Scotland’s new leader Humza Yousaf seeks to assert himself in the role.
In an op-ed for POLITICO to sell the paper, Yousaf writes that Scotland’s “voice” has been ignored by the U.K. government.
“It is therefore not surprising that so many people in Scotland are asking if a better future for us is to become an independent country and apply to be an EU member state in our own right,” he argues.
The gist of it
The paper is, according to a Scottish government official not permitted to speak on the record, partially aimed at a “Brussels audience,” as effectively a pitch to the continent’s power players. It begins by setting out how Scotland shares “core values” with the European Union, and argues that “has much to contribute as a responsible and reliable future EU member state” which is “fully committed both to the rule of international law and to enhancing people’s rights.” That passage is seemingly designed to contrast the Scottish government with Rishi Sunak’s Westminster administration, which is facing calls from its MPs to scrap Britain’s human rights framework over its stalled asylum policy.
In that vein, Yousaf writes in his article for POLITICO that his SNP would “never seek to bring other countries into an independence debate that is between ourselves and the U.K. government” — a passage that could be read both as a message to a wary Madrid and as an assurance to the continent that the Scottish government aren’t seeking special assistance from Europe in their battle to become independence.
The paper reaffirms the SNP’s current position on rejoining the bloc: namely, that a successful vote for Scottish independence would count as a mandate to begin negotiations to also join the EU.
“Given the merit-based nature of the EU accession process, this Scottish government is clear that Scotland would be well placed to fulfill the requirements of the accession process under Article 49 of the TEU [treaty] smoothly and quickly,” the paper reads. It optimistically points to Austria, Finland and Sweden as examples of countries which took less than two years to join the EU.
But, speaking before its publication, Scotland’s Constitution Secretary Angus Robertson admitted there will be “challenges” for Scotland to surpass in order to pass the bloc’s strict Article 49 accession process.
The challenges
The SNP points to Scotland’s strong vote for Remain in the 2016 referendum as a key argument for independence — though winning over all of those voters remains a challenging prospect in its own right. But the tricky detail of actually getting back into the club also has the potential to cause problems for Scotland’s nationalists.
For starters, the EU requires new members to commit to joining the Euro — something the SNP is loath to do after currency concerns helped to jettison their hopes of winning the 2014 referendum. Instead, the paper reaffirms the party’s policy of using Britain’s sterling currency even after independence, before eventually moving to a new “Scottish pound.”
“The process of establishing a Scottish pound would be closely aligned with the process of re-joining the EU,” the paper reads. Sam Taylor, who works for the pro-Union think tank These Islands, said this is an “oblique way of conceding” that Scotland cannot rejoin the EU until it has set up its own central bank and currency — two deeply complicated ventures.
The paper also tackles the thorny issue of a potential trade border with England in the event of Scotland entering the single market, and accepts that “smooth checks” would be required at the border for goods moving to and from neighboring England and Wales.
It argues that a new government ministry responsible for trading with the rest of the U.K. would, through the use of online tech, help to minimize, but not eliminate, the number of checks and admin required at the border. To some ears, that will sound similar to the Conservative Brexiteers who pushed tech solutions as a way to resolve a knotty Northern Ireland border row.
It also points optimistically to the opposition Labour Party’s own plans to renegotiate the Brexit deal struck with the European Union — as an example of how less checks may eventually be required.
“The solutions proposed sound exactly like the thicket of admin which Brexit has introduced to cross-border trade with the EU,” Taylor warned.
