How Remain could lead to Scottish Independence

It's often suggested that Brexit could lead to the break-up of the UK. But could the reverse be true?

by Martin Kettle / July 19, 2018 / Leave a comment

Published in August 2018 issue of Prospect Magazine

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Could the UK staying in actually lead to Scotland going? Photo: PA

When England and Wales voted to leave the EU in 2016 but Scotland voted to stay, many—not least in the SNP—thought Brexit would break the Union. Theresa May’s absolute insistence that the UK as a whole had voted to leave seemed designed to provoke Scots into revolt.

It hasn’t worked out that way. Try as she might, Nicola Sturgeon has failed to persuade Scots that a break with Europe should herald a break with England. Scottish opinion has proved stubbornly hard to win over.

Scottish separatists are more divided over the EU than the SNP likes to admit, and the party slipped back in the 2017 election. Better the Unionist devil you know, perhaps; especially because, after Brexit, Scotland might have to join the eurozone and maybe Schengen if it wanted to get back into the EU.

But, if Brexit is now reversed, what then? Suddenly the uncertainty factor that has frustrated all Sturgeon’s efforts to fan the pro-independence mood would disappear. The nationalist offer would suddenly be on more solid and predictable ground.

Going it alone politically could seem an awful lot easier with Scotland safely back inside a single market, not just with the other 27 EU member states, but with England too. And if staying in the EU led to an uptick of economic optimism, then it might be just time for another shot at independence.

Scots would be able to say that enough is enough for the political Union with England—an England that had played fast and loose with Scottish interests during the now aborted Brexit process—and now safe in the knowledge that the economics was solid and sorted.

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Comments

GREGORYHUGH_ARROWSMITH
July 21, 2018 at 21:50
Not buying it. With Indyref, the signals from Brussels were that Scotland would have to re-apply to join the EU if it seceded from the UK, so the economics are only "solid and sorted" on the assumption that it stays. For an independent Scotland to get a good deal from the EU, it would have to demonstrate it had been ripped from it against its will. Choosing to secede from a country that is a member doesn't qualify, so Brexit would have to come first. But Brexit has opened our eyes to the sensitivities around the land borders of the UK's nations. There will be no majority in Scotland for choosing an invisible border with the EU over an invisible border with England. The SNP's ambitions are stymied if Brexit happens and if it doesn't. It must find a different tune to sing for many years to come.