Tim Stanley

Another Scottish independence referendum? The Union can win it


Fraser Nelson is joined by Alex Massie and James Forsyth to discuss IndyRef2:


When will the politics ever end? Now Nicola Sturgeon says she wants a second Scottish independence referendum, and so we plunge ourselves – wearily but no less determined – into yet another fight to save our country. The nationalists operate on the principle of being a persistent irritant. Demand independence so often and so annoyingly that eventually the country just says: ‘Have it, if it will shut you up.’

But no. We proud Unionists cannot submit to the SNP’s logic that independence is ‘only a matter of time’. We have to fight this. And we can win.

First, let me shoot down the Brexit myth. The argument goes that because Scotland voted Remain and Theresa May ‘insists’ upon a hard Brexit, Scotland will inevitably want to leave the UK to stay in the single market. This is wrong on so many levels. The fact that May is pursuing a hard Brexit is not a matter of Tory policy but the logical extension of Brexit itself, for to leave the EU in any meaningful sense is to leave the single market. If Scotland left the UK to avoid this situation, it would be cutting off its nose to spite its face, for there’s no guarantee that it would be able to join the EU in its own right. And can we please remember that not all Scots are Europhiles? Some 38 per cent of them voted for Brexit, including 400,000 SNP supporters.

I resent the suggestion that Brexit is a purely English matter. To say that we have to choose between Brexit and maintaining the Union is not axiomatic – it’s SNP logic, and cynical logic at that. Nicola Sturgeon has decided this is true because it’s an excuse to call a referendum.

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