Paradoxes in Nicola Sturgeon’s rapid push for Scottish independence

‘Scexit’ would surely be as disruptive as Brexit, says Sean O’Grady

Nicola Sturgeon shows off the prospectus paper (Andrew Milligan/PA) (PA Wire)

There are two great paradoxes about the Scottish government’s drive for independence.

First is the speed, allowing for the SNP position that undoing the Act of Union it is about 300 years overdue. Nicola Sturgeon’s rhetoric is full of urgency about regaining sovereignty and freedom, and the next independence referendum will be held a year from today in only a year’s time, on 19 October 2023. Few think a lawful plebiscite can be held then; Ms Sturgeon only offers an attempt to convert “a” future election in Scotland into a de facto referendum, which would not be the same thing. Opinion polls do not suggest victory for the Yes side is assured, and in reality an operator as shrewd as Ms Sturgeon would wait until the most propitious moment because a third attempt might be decades rather than years away. In general, a Conservative government propped up by English votes is good for the SNP, but a Labour government would provide less promising prospects.

Second is Brexit. Scotland voted to Remain in 2016, and its verdict was ignored. This caused much anger and made Scottish independence in Europe a more pressing cause. Yet the fact an independent Scotland would seek to be inside the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market while the rest of the UK (rUK) would remain firmly outside creates formidable problems. It is vastly complicated, just as Brexit was, but ‘Scexit’ (as pro-union commentators have taken to calling independence) would surely be as disruptive and damaging to trade as Brexit. Ms Sturgeon’s new blueprint is reminiscent of the kind of wishful thinking engaged in by Theresa May and David Davis in the months after the Brexit vote.  There are suggestions that trade in services might be almost unaffected and that technological solutions would solve the need for checks on goods at Scotland’s borders. There is also an assumption Scotland would remain in the UK-Ireland Common Travel Area, thus removing the need for passports, but Sturgeon may have underestimated quite how  indignant the English can be. The idea of copying the anomalous Northern Ireland dual status model seems to have been shelved.

Similar remarks can be made about using the British pound until certain tests are met and the Scottish pound can be established, transitioning to the euro at an even more distant date. Most of those arguments  were left unresolved after the 2014 vote.

Ms Sturgeon may be right to be optimistic about the future of economic and political relations between Scotland and rUK, but she has no other option than to make it seem painless and to stress the benefits of EU membership. But the painful and costly experience of Brexit actually maes Scexit an equally unappealing project. It would be divisive and difficult, even if the direction of the project was a settled matter, and on anything other than a decisive vote, Scexit would poison politics for a generation. In due course, Ms Sturgeon and her team might judge it right to refer their final independence deal, heavily influenced by EU-rUK talks, to the Scottish people for their final approval in a kind of Indyref2.2. It’s going to be a hard road in any case.