SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon has embarked on what can only be described as an exercise in full frontal-spin at best and rank hypocrisy at worst.
Scottish deputy first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, used the weekend to embark on what can only be described as an exercise in full frontal-spin at best and rank hypocrisy at worst.
Using an essay in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper in which she made a direct appeal to those favouring devo-max to vote yes for independence, she wrote of the “damaging uncertainty about our place in the European Union created by David Cameron’s speech last week”.
Indeed, such is the audacity and desperation by the SNP to get its plans for an independent Scotland to join the EU sorted, Sturgeon has taken the unusual step of making an appeal directly to the foreign ministers of each member state.
Just days after the President of the European Commission made clear he would not be meeting the Scottish government to sort the SNP mess out, Sturgeon sought to distance Holyrood from David Cameron, making clear her party’s commitment to the EU.
Concluding Scotland benefits “greatly from the peace and security provided by membership”, she expanded in her letter to foreign ministers:
“I therefore want to assure all member states that following a positive result in the [independence] referendum we would work with the United Kingdom and the rest of the EU in partnership to ensure we continued to play an active part in that community of interest.”
Whilst arguing the SNP felt “certain aspects of the EU” were in need of reform, such as around fishing and carbon emissions, she continued:
“However, we understand those reform ambitions can only be achieved through dialogue with member states from within the EU.
“That is why we do not support the holding of an in/out referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership. We have no intention of leaving the European Union. On the contrary, we will seek to be a constructive member of the union working with other member states to maximise the benefits we have enjoyed as members for over 40 years.”
However warm the words might sound towards the EU, one questions just how committed the SNP really are to a strong Europe when it is prepared to bypass the inconvenient truths coming out of the Commission that an independent Scotland would simply need to join the back of the queue and await its turn to go through the convoluted process of re-applying for membership.
And more questionable still, one wonders just what a letter from Holyrood will actually achieve.
In October, the Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, made crystal clear:
“In the hypothetical case of independence, Scotland would have to join the queue and ask to be admitted, needing the unanimous approval of all member states to obtain the status of a candidate country… and to sign the final treaty [of accession].”
Just last week, as Sturgeon herself was visiting Ireland, the Irish Europe minister – whose government holds the six-monthly rotating presidency of the EU – also backed the suggestions an independent Scotland would need to reapply for membership of Europe’s top club.
Whilst explaining Scotland would be welcome in the EU as a separate nation, speaking to BBC Scotland, Lucinda Creighton explained:
“If Scotland were to become independent, Scotland would have to apply for membership and that can be a lengthy process, as we see even with the very advanced and well-integrated countries like Iceland, where I’ve just come from.
“Iceland is obviously a member of Efta (European Free Trade Association) and had been deeply involved in the single market for many years, but still has a task in terms of transforming its legislation and fitting into the European requirements for membership.
“And that would be the case, I think, for Scotland as well. It may not take as long, but there would be an application and a negotiation process, as there is for any candidate country.”
In the Czech Republic, meanwhile, foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg has warned an independent Scotland would get a worse deal in the EU if it was on its own. Speaking during a recent interview with the BBC, he said Scotland would fare far worse from being a much smaller, less significant member state.
Citing his country’s own experiences Schwarzenberg continued:
“In our own history, as you know, 20 years ago we separated and out of Czechoslovakia there were two independent countries.
“Being a foreign minister I can tell you it has some advantages, but the international weight of both republics together is lesser than the former Czechoslovakia.”
All this on top of the warnings from one former senior diplomat that re-entering the EU after voting for independence would prove “complex and costly” for Scotland.
Writing for Prospect Magazine last week, Lord Kerr, previously head of the British Diplomatic Service and Secretary General of the European Convention, explained:
“So an independent Scotland would need to go through the same accession process as have all but the original six member states, a process which the Croats have just successfully completed, but in which the Turks are bogged down. Readmission would be possible for Scots only when every existing member state had agreed to every detail of the terms.
“And even then an adverse parliamentary or referendum vote on ratification, in any EU capital, could still sink the ship. No wonder the SNP is in denial.”
In declaring David Cameron to be the biggest threat to Scotland’s influence and position within the EU, Nicola Sturgeon has attempted not so successfully to divert attention from the twin threat to Scotland’s position within Europe posed by both Holyrood and Whitehall. Little wonder the Better Together campaign has accused the deputy first minister of not being prepared to take no for an answer.
See also:
• More EU woe for slippery Salmond as Barroso shuns Sturgeon – January 25th, 2013
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47 Responses to “Spin, hypocrisy and the SNP’s desperate last throw of the EU dice”
John Ruddy
Nicola Sturgeon said at the weekend that 10,000 Scottish jobs depended on Scotland being in the EU. Scotland remaining in the Uk has put them at risk, and the only way to secure those jobs is to vote for independence.
Exactly the same argument could be used for the 150,000 jobs in Scotland that depend on Scotland being in the UK. Scotland becoming independent puts them at risk, and the only way to secure those jobs is to vote against indepedence.
So whose jobs do we support – the 10,000 dependent on the EU, or the 150,000 dependent on the UK?
Peter A Bell
What is being talked about here is employment that relies on access to the European single market. Those 150,000 jobs that you refer to can only be at risk if the rest of the UK (rUK) ceases to be part of the single market. Not even Cameron is idiot enough to suggest such a thing. Although he is obviously prepared to risk it for some perceived party political advantage.
Alternatively, what might put those 150,000 jobs at risk the pursuit some kind of illegal trade war against Scotland by rUK. Is that what you envisage?
Brian
Yet more from the cesspit of anti-SNP propaganda of ‘Ed Jacobs’ and Left (New Labour) Foot Forward.
You will notice that there are never any positive arguments on this pestilential site for Scotland being part of the UK. Oh dear – could it be that there aren’t any?
Walton Pantland
I am not politically naive and I find your comment patronising. I don’t need to be lectured on the true nature of the SNP – this is clear enough from Salmond’s response to Trump, for example.
However the SNP have offered social democratic policies to Scottish voters and they have been rewarded for it. Scots are astute enough to know that the real question is not “should Scotland be independent”, it’s “what would an independent Scotland look like?”
So far, all the pro-independence parties demonstrate that an independent Scotland would be significantly to the left of the political settlement available south of the border.
Labour offer nothing to the people of Scotland. This is not an exaggeration – they don’t have a single positive contribution to make. All we get is negative campaigning.
I would expect a progressive blog to have a far more nuanced take on independence, and not bang the drum for right wing nationalism.
Sunshine on Crieff
Since when did those wanting to put a “left foot forward” become interested in promoting reactionary British nationalism?
Also, to clarify what Ireland’s Foreign Minister, Lucinda Creighton, said about Scotland’s EU membership:
“I certainly did not at any stage suggest that Scotland could, should or would be thrown out of the EU”.
An independent Scotland would be negotiating terms from withing the EU.