Is the Windsor Framework a get-out-of-jail card for Scottish nationalists? The excitement expressed in SNP circles at Rishi Sunak’s Protocol breakthrough yesterday was palpable. For if remaining in the EU single market while staying in the UK is good for Northern Ireland, surely this could be the case too for an independent Scotland? Isn’t this the ‘best of both worlds’ scenario that Nicola Sturgeon always asked for: borderless trade with the UK after Scotland joins the EU single market? A bonanza for Scottish businesses, who would be able to access markets in Europe free from Brexit red tape? Perhaps even a ‘Holyrood Brake’ to ensure that the Scottish Parliament can axe EU laws it doesn’t like?
Unfortunately, it does not work quite like that. Instead, the Windsor Framework underlines just how difficult it would be for Scotland to retain access to her biggest market – the UK – post-independence.
Officials in Brussels are desperate for the situation in Northern Ireland to be seen as unique; sui generis; the exception that proves the rule. They will always insist that the integrity of the single market must be defended – and any attempt to read across from Ireland to Scotland gets an extremely dusty response from Brussels officials. Believe me, I have tried.
There would be no special deals for Scotland, no protocols or agreements bending the rules.
They absolutely do not want small countries in the rest of Europe asking for equivalent ‘Stormont Brakes’, special VAT deals or any of the other mechanisms allowing Northern Ireland to bend the single market. And above all, Brussels does not want to be seen to be encouraging secessionist movements in countries like France or Spain. Catalan separatists cannot be led to believe that, with this framework, Brussels has made regional independence easier.
The Windsor deal, like the Protocol that preceded it, is all about ensuring peace in the province. It’s about the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. There can be no border between the North and the South. Earlier this month, we heard of the shooting of an off-duty Northern Irish policeman. Dissident republican group the New IRA has admitted its involvement. This is the proof we didn’t need that men of violence haven’t entirely disappeared.
Rishi Sunak’s agreement shows that Brussels has now belatedly recognised that the Good Friday Agreement also requires no east-west border between the province of Northern Ireland and the UK. There is a reason that British sausages on sale in Northern Ireland is significant: more than consumer choice, it is a symbol for the enduring Union.
But in Scotland, the situation is simply not comparable. There is no threat to security like in Northern Ireland: no republican army or Protestant paramilitaries (except on the wider fringes of football sectarianism). Scottish nationalists can complain about double standards all they like, but they will get no hearing.
So if Scotland wishes to become independent, it will have to wait its turn and join the EU like any other country. That process in itself is expected to take five to 10 years. There would be no special deals for Scotland, no protocols or agreements bending the rules. Scotland would simply have to accept regulatory border posts and the need for currency separation.
Before the independence referendum nine years ago, these obstacles faced by Scotland trying to become independent today did not exist. Before 2014, no one expected the UK to leave the EU. Since the UK had opted out of the euro, Scotland could have remained in a currency union with the UK.
But as a result of Brexit, if Scotland wants to break free from another, it will have to commit not only to joining the single market and customs union, but ultimately to adopting the euro. Nor could Scotland opt out of regulation by the European Court of Justice which oversees the single market. To protect the European single market, there would be a hard Scottish border with the rest of the UK.
Nicola Sturgeon has now conceded that a border would, in fact, exist after an independent Scotland joins the EU. However, with Boris Johnson levels of naive optimism she insists that border issues could be overcome by ‘technology’ and goodwill. Really?
The independence prospectus has changed fundamentally. An independent Scotland would be out of the UK and out of the EU, struggling with a new currency and with a hard border against the country that takes 60 per cent of Scottish exports. Banks and large businesses would likely relocate to avoid currency instability. Pension values could no longer be guaranteed by the UK state. Wealthy individuals would seek sanctuary in England from high Scottish taxes. There would be tough constraints on public spending as Scotland learned to do without Barnett subsidies from England.
The 2014 vote could have provided an independence without tears. Today, independence would be blood, sweat and tears.
In the longer term the Scottish economy would, of course, revive and even thrive. Scotland is potentially a wealthy small EU country with an educated workforce, world class universities and immensely valuable natural resources, both fossil and renewable.
But the problem is getting from here to there. The SNP tried under Nicola Sturgeon to pretend nothing has changed since 2014 – but everything has. Eventually her successor will have to accept this new reality.
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