‘An Independent Scotland Within the EU: Impossible or Impractical?’ by Donal Lavery

As some of you may know, I don’t like the Scottish National Party. They have a clandestine history of anti-Catholic, anti-Irish sentiment, while deploying a mantra of talking “left” but acting “right”. There are people naive enough out there to believe that an independent Scotland could have Tommy Sheridan or Jim Sillars as Prime Minister, when in reality it would be Nicola Sturgeon and her pro-market, pro-Monarchist ideas. But again I request, with due respect, that you do not confuse Scottish separatism with the heroic anti-colonial struggles of the Irish people. They are not and have never been the same thing. The Scots have twice requested a referendum on independence and will twice be afforded it, via democratic methods; when the Irish people voted for independence, in overwhelming numbers, they were drowned in a sea of blood and their country mutilated. It was a Scottish Protestant-extremist King who colonised Ireland in the plantation, and sent thousands of Scottish settlers across the water to usurp the Irish people. The Scottish House of Stewart was the most tyrannical regime ever towards the indigenous Irish people – who previously had been Gaelic, Catholic and free.

The SNP have never been supporters of Irish republicanism; when Irish prisoners were engaged in political protest in jail, the SNP could have easily asserted this demand from the UK Labour government who then needed their votes for survival. Instead, they voted to bring down the Callaghan government and usher in Margaret Thatcher – and look at all the “good” she did for Ireland, and Scotland for that matter. It’s a question of judgement, and these people, time after time, have proven themselves on the wrong side of both history and morality. Irish people naively “befriend” them via the association that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, when the reality is really quite muddied waters.

After the Brexit referendum, a number of SNP MSP’s and Jim Sillars revealed that they defied the party’s position and voted with their heads to leave the European Union. Why? Because they know that any future independent Scotland will not gain access to the European Union. You need a budget deficit of 3% or less of GDP, and Scotland’s is currently almost 10%. You must also join the single currency, and not many people quite fancy that good night; operating the “German pound”. Likewise, the Spanish, Italian and French governments have already said they would have to veto Scotland’s entry (particularly Spain) as it would simply fuel the separatist movements in each of those respective countries. So, if Scotland does have a vote to become “independent”, it cannot by European law gain entry to the EU while all those barriers exist. Don’t take my word for it, that’s what the President of the EU Commission, Council and Parliament have said before. Therefore, the whole basis of this second vote has nothing to do with remaining in the EU; it’s about advancing the neo-nationalist (not republican) cause within Scotland.

Now this is an important issue because it highlights to us all, particularly those folk who gullibly view the SNP through rose-tinted glasses, a serious error of judgement on the part of Nicola Sturgeon and her “associates” (including that great friend of Ireland, Rupert Murdoch). They are in effect arguing for Scotland to leave a more democratic Union (at least in Scotland’s case) and make savage public spending cuts just to qualify for membership of an even more undemocratic Union, where Scotland will have as much say as Greece or Portugal. They are advocating for a hard border between Scotland and England, that will cost both populations scores of billions of pounds in trade. They are advocating for a financialised economy like Scotland to lose the pound as its currency, which will cause many of the financial institutions employing Scots to depart for London. They want to ditch the British, who they do have sway over in securing numerous financial concessions for Scotland which England and Wales do not enjoy, to suffer agonising fiscal discipline under the Germans. It is absolutely bogus. It would bring about a deflationary, monetarist economic agenda, with two neo-liberal governments both sides of the then border. Scotland’s then ailing economy would be terribly bad news economically for Irish businesses exporting to it.

But what would be the best option for Scotland if it does vote to become “independent”? Well, it wouldn’t be the EU, where your laws and regulations are subject to unelected Commissioners and Directives, which wouldn’t be independence at all. It would ultimately have to be a nation-state with membership of the European Free Trade Association, where they would get some Single Market access (at a price). The currency arrangement would have to be one like the former Irish Punt, on a fixed exchange rate with the Pound Sterling, to allow for devaluation (to spend more money). That is the only context in which Scotland would have some exercise of sovereignty over its own affairs; but you have to balance that with the fact that a permanent Tory government in the remaining UK will ensure that all prospective investors are drawn to them, depleting Scotland’s indigenous tax-base and any measurable democratic control over capital.

The last time I tried pointing these facts out to people I was harangued with all sorts of insults and extreme people questioning my Irishness/agenda; When no amount of  neo-nationalist sentiment regarding Scotland is going to produce a positive outcome for Ireland, ever. If Scotland exits the Union, that won’t be the beginning of the end of the British state, but rather the end of the beginning of it; a consolidation led by right wing forces (including the Tory/Unionist alliance) determined to interlock and centralise the remaining areas under the Crown, which will cause enormous damage to the peace process and prospects for Irish unity here. The Thatcherites will be in government forever, minus the Lothian progressive conscience. So in my considered opinion, with all due respect to the disposition of any readers, the best option for Scotland is that of a Federal UK, where it can have its own President, a quasi-constitution, greater budgetary powers, operate the pound and pursue a distinct foreign policy. Now that’s what’s going to happen, under either a Tory or Labour government after this election, whether Ms. Sturgeon likes it or not.