There’s a school of thought that, since Scotland isn’t likely to become independent anytime soon, interrogating the SNP’s claims about what independence would mean in practical terms is hypothetical and academic. This view is usually expressed by Unionists rather than nationalists, and reflects a frustration with the refusal of the constitutional question to go away. Journalists and commentators, they complain, are artificially invigorating a debate that would otherwise fade to silence.
Setting aside the wishful thinking required to sustain such a belief, there are two stories in the news that illustrate why continuing examination of the case for independence is necessary. First up is the Scottish Information Commissioner ruling against the SNP government in a freedom of information appeal.
International cooperation is not rooted in the sense of victimhood and entitlement that animates Scottish nationalism
An FOI lodged two years ago asked St Andrew’s House to provide ‘any analysis that the Scottish government have carried out, since 2016, which assesses the timeframe which would be required for an independent Scotland to rejoin the EU’. The Scottish government’s position is that an independent Scotland could ‘rejoin’ the EU quickly and without having to join the euro or disrupt trade with the UK.
Ministers refused to disclose certain documents as part of the FOI request, including analysis of how long it had taken other countries to accede to the EU, on the grounds that they were ‘not relevant’. Outgoing Information Commissioner Daren Fitzhenry ruled against ministers and ordered them to hand over the documents. His reasoning was satisfyingly crisp: if the documents were irrelevant, why would the Scottish government be holding them?
That the SNP is positively allergic to open government and transparency is barely news at this point, but this affair underlines the poverty of their contentions about independence and EU membership. The pitch to the 62 per cent who voted Remain in 2016 is: vote for independence to get back into the EU.
This is presented as guaranteed, the SNP having perfected baseless assertion as a mode of constitutional argument long before Vote Leave was even a twinkle in Matthew Elliott’s eye. Even their language is presumptive: they talk about ‘rejoining’ but Scotland has never been a member state of the EU, only part of the territory of a member state, and has never been signatory to an accession or other treaty. If it were ever to become independent, Scotland would be applying to join the EU for the first time.
As for the speed at which any accession process would occur, there have been plenty of claims but not much else. Article 49 of the EU Treaty makes no provision for formally fast-tracking membership applications, though political goodwill might smooth an otherwise long and bureaucratic journey.
That presupposes that goodwill would be present, except Scotland would be rocking up with a list of demands for special treatment. For example, the SNP says an independent Scotland could join the EU without adopting the euro. Nationalists typically cite the example of Denmark, which is an EU member state but retains the krone as its currency and enjoys other opt-outs from treaty obligations. What they don’t mention is that Denmark was already a member of the European Communities when Maastricht was being agreed in 1992. While the Folketing endorsed the new treaty, the voters narrowly rejected it in a referendum, creating a political crisis for the community as the treaty could not come into effect until all member states had ratified it.
A compromise was eventually reached, known as the Edinburgh Agreement, which granted Denmark an exemption and this new deal was successfully put to another referendum. None of the circumstances that led to the Denmark protocol would apply to an independent Scotland, which would be demanding opt-outs as an acceding country rather than one already inside the bloc. As the Denmark protocol makes clear, its arrangements ‘apply exclusively to Denmark and not to other existing or acceding member states’.
Scottish exceptionalism may be a powerful force in Scottish politics but it does not enjoy enough sway to make the European Union tear up its rules to grant Scottish membership on Scottish terms. Brussels could, in theory, agree to EU membership but any deal would be structured primarily around the EU’s interests, not Scotland’s.
That neither treaties nor realpolitik guarantee the sort of international reception for an independent Scotland that the SNP describes is driven home by another news item. President Biden told CNN it was ‘premature’ to talk about Ukraine joining Nato since there wasn’t ‘unanimity’ for membership ‘in the middle of a war’. For ‘unanimity’, read: the United States is not yet prepared to allow it.
Washington does not want a hot war with Moscow, which is what Nato membership would mean while Russian forces are still occupying Ukrainian territory and waging war against the country and its citizens. Of course, Ukraine is not Scotland and an independent Scotland would present an entirely different prospect. However, Biden’s statement is a reminder of American dominance within Nato and the need for aspiring member states to win over the United States if it hopes to join the club.
This places a question mark over the SNP’s commitment to remove Trident from Scottish waters. Doing so would disarm a key Nato member of its unilateral nuclear capability, likely for a significant period. That would create geostrategic problems for the US at a time when it can ill-afford any more. This is not to say that an independent Scotland would necessarily be denied Nato membership, but it might have to accept an unhappy compromise that dilutes, defers or drops any disarmament agenda.
Where it engages on these points, the Scottish government has little of substance to say beyond reciting threadbare talking points. Framing Scottish independence as a smooth transition or a clearly-defined process is dishonest. It reflects a refusal by Nationalists to accept that their desire for Scotland to no longer be a part of the UK does not confer on it a right to be part of other unions or alliances. International cooperation is not rooted in the sense of victimhood and entitlement that animates Scottish nationalism but in relative power, realpolitik, shared interests, negotiation and practice feasibility.
No one owes Scotland its preferred constitutional and international arrangements and in telling the voters otherwise, the SNP is sticking its independence prospectus on the side of a big red bus. An honest Scottish nationalism would decouple independence from interdependence and make a case in which both would be ideal but the former still desirable without the latter.
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