How might an independent Scotland join the EU?

Politics as we have come to know it may be taking a hiatus, but it has not ceased completely. Scottish independence rocketed back up the agenda in the wake of the Brexit vote and debate will continue over the merits and drawbacks. One fundamental question is how an independent Scotland would join the European Union. Here, Kirsty Hughes, director of the Scottish Centre for European Relations, answers some questions about its new report, “An Independent Scotland in the EU: Issues for Accession.” With contributions from 15 authors, from academics to ex-civil servants, lawyers to journalists and economists, the main impetus is that a constitutionally independent Scotland would be eligible to join the EU over a period of four-five years. When I spoke to her over the phone, Hughes answered questions about currency, fishing, a unilateral referendum and of course, how she foresees the Covid-19 pandemic affecting the future of the independence debate.

The report states that Scotland would have to commit to the euro. Is this new and is the SNP likely to want that?

It’s not new for the EU or candidate countries to join, but the SNP policy on currency has changed. That is no longer to stick permanently with the pound, which was the policy for the referendum in 2014. Its current policy, which was also set out by the Growth Commission for Nicola Sturgeon, says that Scotland would use the pound even without the UK’s permission—this is called “sterlingisation”—and that it would then move to a Scottish currency as soon as was economically wise. There is an awareness in the SNP that to join the EU, if Scotland had a large fiscal deficit, that would have to be reduced.

There is also a recognition by the SNP that if you are joining the EU, there are no opt-outs from the euro. However, even though technically they would be committed, as David Gow suggests in his chapter, they may not actually have to join the single currency. Scotland could “do a Sweden,” which makes sure it never quite reaches the criteria. But the Scottish government won’t want to go on about that too much, as Brussels could well tell them to go off and join Norway outside the EU but in the European Economic Area. So you have to watch who you’re communicating with. You’re not only communicating with your Scottish audience that might not be that keen at the moment on joining the euro; you’re also communicating with the EU.

Fishing, the report suggests, is something that could be quite problematic in pushing for an independent Scotland. It has of course been a big factor in the UK’s position on Europe. There have been a few recent good news stories about how fishing catches will improve after we leave the transition period. Do you think that narrative will play badly for Scottish independence?

Not necessarily. Fishing is as sensitive here as it has been in the rest of the UK during Brexit—it has obviously got some sort of symbolic, slightly romantic symbolism as well as substantive meaning to those people whose livelihoods come from the sector, and it strikes a chord with the wider public. But it is a small part of the UK economy, it is a somewhat bigger part of the Scottish economy, but not that much bigger.

What the Brexit debate made clear over the last few years is that it’s quite complicated. If you look at fishing in the west of Scotland, much of it is focused on fresh seafood, things in high demand on the continent, especially in France and Spain. They are exported live, the fishermen have to get to their markets really quickly, they can’t afford to be held up by customs checks, by tariffs, by health checks and so on. So firstly, fishing is much more diverse than the common story acknowledges. Secondly, what is true for the whole UK is also true for Scotland: we export most of the fish we catch and then we import different fish from elsewhere. So again, trade barriers with the EU are not a good idea, reaffirming that membership of the EU is beneficial.

I think future access to waters for an independent Scotland could well be a neuralgic issue. But as the chapter on this in the report says, there will be a chance to negotiate Scotland’s quotas with the EU and look at compensating measures.

On the pandemic—and of course it’s a bit like the French Revolution, it’s probably too soon to tell—but it looks as if the UK is going to have an extended transition period while the crisis goes on. Do you think that that will ultimately work in favour of independence or work against it?

Firstly, what we’ve seen so far, and it is very early days, is some commentators in Scotland saying this will delay independence. Sturgeon told her supporters to campaign online not in person, demonstrations are being cancelled, and obviously political conversation is presumably going to go on focussing on the pandemic, less on independence. We haven’t seen significantly different health responses in Scotland to the rest of the UK, so you’re not going to see a differentiation in that way. But as and when we come out of this, whether or not it is easing off by the autumn or not for a year and a half, a lot of people again are going to consider whether this is going to lead to a big change in how we see politics and policy. There is one scenario where people say “we think the UK government handled it well and we are back in support of the UK.” Then there is a perhaps more likely scenario of “okay, we are through that and now we want to grasp how we recover in our own hands.” That self-determination has always been a big part of the independence argument.

It looks to me that London moved incredibly slowly. I was a bit surprised that Holyrood and the Scottish government didn’t try and move more quickly at least where they might have done, including in education. I don’t think the aftermath is going to be like after World War Two, but what if it was to some extent politically, in the sense that you kick the Tories out and bring in a reforming Labour government—is there a scenario where Labour recovers in Scotland? I think it would be quite a leap to suggest so but it is very hard to look to the future on these things.

The longer the UK is in transition, the more helpful that is to Scotland if it were to go independent soon, because of course the less the UK and Scotland have diverged from the EU’s laws and regulations, the faster we can re-join. Once you’ve left transition it is not easy to stay in line with many EU rules. You can try and stay in line in devolved areas, so environment, agriculture, aspects of fisheries, but you can see from that list that those things are also going to be part of any putative trade deal negotiated between the UK government and the EU.

It doesn’t look likely that there will be an independence referendum any time soon, but what do you think of the two different approaches floated, the legally sanctioned one from Westminster and an advisory ballot?

From an EU point of view, it must be a legal and constitutional referendum if an independent Scotland is to have a straightforward acceptance as an independent state eligible to join the EU. Now the people who are asking for an advisory referendum, as plan B if consent is not forthcoming, don’t want an illegal referendum, only a means of testing in the courts whether Holyrood does actually have the power to hold such an advisory referendum or not. The courts may say it does or it doesn’t. If they say it does, then you can imagine that Westminster might change the laws so Scotland does not have the power.

But even though the aim is to test the legality of such an approach, if it develops into a political stand-off between Edinburgh and London, that would make some people in the EU very nervous.