Scottish independence: a few basic points

By Pete North - January 24, 2021

This week we’re seeing the SNP capitalising on the mess of Brexit. It should, however, be noted that in the indicative votes, the SNP voted squarely against remaining in the single market. Our experience of Brexit shows that the post-referendum politics can make things messier than anyone anticipated. Scotland could just as easily face the same.

First off the bat, Scotland does not pivot from one union to the other. It must formally complete its separation process before it can begin accession talks with the EU. We can, therefore, assume, that it will have to undergo its own accession to the WTO first. More than likely, it will have to do as the UK did and replicate schedules etc. It would first have to align with the UK.

Like the UK, it can expect only provisional bridging trade agreements, until such a time as it resumes EU deals. It should not bank on a rapid accession to the EU. The EU may choose to fast-track accession but that more than likely requires an association agreement first before assuming full membership.

Being that the situation would be a political minefield for the EU, it may prefer a staggered arms-length process and could frustrate full membership for further political reasons in same way that Ukraine is notionally in an accession process. Scotland may never become an EU member. It may not even secure consent when the border implications are understood.

In this, in part because of Spain, the EU will maintain a diplomatic distance. You cannot begin to talk about the EU’s approach to Scotland without taking the Spanish separatism movement into account – a tinder keg that could set Europe on fire, with Breton separatists to follow, and then Italy, north and south. The EU dare not encourage Scotland. It could bring down the entire EU.

Then also, any suggestion of border concessions would risk unravelling the Northern Ireland protocol. Nationalists will no doubt do a re-run of Tory tedious arguments about trusted trader schemes and “technology” but we now have a precedent for just how wrong that is.

The point I would note is that Scotland cannot count on the solidarity of the EU in the same way that Ireland has enjoyed it just recently. Ireland is a member. Scotland is not. Scotland thus becomes a petitioner of Westminster in the same way we became a petitioner of Brussels during Article 50 talks.

Consequently, London will almost certainly dictate the sequence and the timing, and make crushing demands. Unlike Brexit, there is far more to sort out than just the mechanics of trade. The matter of currency remains unresolved for starters and there’s also defence issues. The RAF pulling out of Lossiemouth, for instance, would devastate the Moray economy.

No doubt Scotland will develop its own version of Ultra Brexiteers calling for no deal, and though there are some sane voices in Hollyrood, I wouldn’t bet the farm on them tempering the ultras any more than we were able to contain the ERG. There is then the possibility of Scotland leaving without a deal which is like WTO Brexit on steroids. Neither side comes out of this particularly well. Were that the case, the EU might not be in a rush to pick up the tab for another bastketcase.

Though the SNP will retail supportive voices from within the EU, the only opinion worth noting is the official view from the Commission, and thus far, it has taken a highly procedural line with respect to Scottish independence. Not much has changed and nor will it.

A lot will also depend on how London chooses to play it. Though they will entertain a departure process, there is no automatic ejection as per Article 50 nor is there a countdown clock. Downing Street can simply bog the process down, for years until it runs out of stream. Moreover, it is in no way obliged to cooperate with EU accession. It too, can play silly buggers over any future border. Trusted trader schemes, such as they are, require mutual consent and cooperation. If then Scotland departs without a deal, likely as an antagonistic separation, London will ensure it comes at a hefty price tag.

OF course this likely will not influence any independence vote and Scot Nats will do a Vote Leave style job of it, dismissing it all as project fear with similarly predictable results. I do not expect the decision to be any more informed nor the politics that follows to be any less fraught, and riddled with misapprehension and conceptual misunderstandings.

The future, therefore, is not bright for an independent Scotland any time soon. Moreover, the economic prospectus is equally flawed. The UK’s waters are home to more offshore wind farms than anywhere else in the world but this concentration has not translated into the jobs and manufacturing boom envisaged in the years since the first one came on stream 20 years ago. The SNP notion that Scotland becomes the Saudi Arabia of green energy resembles Saudi Arabia only in terms of the corruption.

Just lately I’ve been reading Brian Urquhart’s reflections on the failure of Operation Market Garden. A completely flawed plan, obviously faulty, but its progenitors were impervious to evidence or warnings, and it then took on a life of its own – resulting in an unmitigated disaster at all levels, and to date, not one of those who ever planned or approved it will ever be sanctioned. As much as I get strong Brexity vibes from it, the same can be said in spades about Scottish Independence.

As much as the operation itself was a failure, it diverted resource and attention from other endeavours that could have succeeded while lengthening the war and leaving the British Army bogged down in a “riverine swamp” over the winter. The symbolism is profound.

What is needed is a far more factual debate than we ever got about Brexit – but more than likely we will see the same fact-free propaganda, while more considered voices in the middle are downed out. We should not expect it to play out any differently particularly since the SNP are every bit as blinded by their own dogma and delusion as the ERG.

On balance, this is not a desirable thing to occur. Though I understand the Scottish sentiment of preferring turmoil over Tory rule in perpetuity, and indeed the yearning for independence for its own sake, it strikes me that Brexit is merely the proximate pretext of this latest push for independence and the EU is being used as a guarantor of that independence in the same way Poland uses it as a bulwark against Russian aggression.

The new found hardened Europhilia of the SNP, ascending to FBPE levels of silliness, is a pretence, and one that could very quickly sour when they see the accession demands. There seems to be the assumption that it’s an easy pivot from one union to the next to resume the 2015 status quo. They’re in for a nasty shock. Perhaps when this saga is written up by historians, it shall be named The Great Self-deception.

Scottish independence: a few uncomfortable truths