The SNP Scottish government has brought out its latest fantasy paper on secession. Never mind the party’s nosediving popularity that could see the Nationalists kicked out of office in 2026. Or that your average Scot’s enthusiasm for another referendum is on a par with their eagerness for another bout of Covid. The dream shall never die, as they say, so what choice do they have but to keep plugging away like a tiresome timeshare salesman?
The new paper is titled An independent Scotland in the EU. It is presented as a realistic outline of how Scotland can remove itself from the UK and accede to the EU as an independent state. Outrageously for a paper produced by civil servants, it uses language and framing that is highly party political. For example, it characterises the 2014 referendum campaign as one in which ‘commitments were made by those arguing against independence that voting “No” was the only way to secure Scotland’s place in the EU’.
There appears, for the first time, to be a concession that sterlingsation and EU membership are incompatible
In reality, those campaigning against secession correctly pointed out that a ‘Yes’ vote would mean Scotland becoming a third country with respect to the EU at the same time as it left the UK. This was a position confirmed in writing (via a letter to the Scottish parliament) by the European Commission six months before the referendum.
MSP Angus Robertson, the SNP’s constitution secretary in charge of promoting the new paper, led the party at Westminster at the time and played a key role in the referendum. The paper frames the UK as a kind of mini-EU of independent countries in a ‘voluntary union’ but with sovereignty perversely sitting at the UK level. Pretending that the UK is not a country used to be the preserve of crackpot online nationalists but is seemingly now de rigueur for civil servants at St Andrew’s House.
The paper offers no new significant policy changes, but there are one or two interesting revelations. On currency, the position of informally using sterling before switching to a new Scottish currency remains. Sterling will still be in use ‘at the point of application’ to the EU, but then: ‘The process of establishing a Scottish pound would be closely aligned with the process of re-joining the EU.’
This appears, for the first time, to be a concession that sterlingsation and EU membership are incompatible. The SNP were previously reluctant to accept this. It is also a concession that campaigning for independence means campaigning for a Scottish economy that will have to transition across four separate currency arrangements in coming years (inside the sterling zone as now, then sterlingisation, then a new Scottish currency, then ultimately the euro). That’s a lot of uncertainty for Scottish businesses.
The language around the border with England is also interesting. When asked about the Anglo-Scottish border, the Sturgeon administration generally refused to engage with the reality of it, conceding only a ‘want’ for free trade arrangements.
The new paper concedes there will be border arrangements but downplays their reality and fails to engage with their economic impact on the Scottish economy. The most pertinent academic work on the trade-related economic impact of independence was carried out by LSE academics in 2021. They found that secession would be two to three times more damaging to Scotland’s economy than Brexit, even with Scotland joining the EU. Notably, this research is not referenced in the paper, despite the SNP using research from the same group of academics when making the case against Brexit.
Ironically, the trade arguments made by the SNP mirror those of the most committed Brexiteers in the build-up to the EU referendum. Parts of the paper are reminiscent of speeches made by the likes of David Davis in the summer of 2016. ‘Never mind Little Englander, being stuck in Fortress Europe ignoring the exciting economies in the rest of the world is being a Little European. A myopic, introspective and troubled Little European,’ he said in a speech in May of that year.
The SNP’s paper is a Little Scotlander attempt to pretend the Nationalists want to reach out to Europe, when in fact their one and only aim is to cut the island of Britain into two separate states. But at least the party finally accepts it is campaigning to establish a hard border on this island for the first time in hundreds of years. That at least is a little more reality than what we’ve been used to.
‘A vote for SNP is a vote for border checks at Gretna’ is probably not a great vote winner. The dream, it seems, is now on life support.
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