I am
disturbed by the glibness of the prevailing assumption that if
Scotland votes to remain in the European Union and the rest of the UK
votes to leave, it will be appropriate to hold a second independence
referendum.
Some time
ago I pointed to the damage inflicted upon inward investment to
Quebec by the determination of defeated separatists to hold a
referendum re-run. Political instability deters investment no matter
how often the SNP claims otherwise. Since the European polls are
evenly balanced and the Scottish polls not much clearer, we now have
the worst of all possible worlds.
The
fallacy of the assumption that Scottish enthusiasm for the EU will
lead to the break-up of the UK lies in the conflation of these two
questions. Just because a voter favours remaining in the EU it does
not follow that he or she would vote for independence rather than see
that wish thwarted.
So far as
I am aware, no-one is being asked at the moment whether they would
prefer to be in the EU or the UK. Even that would be a
fraudulent question, since Scotland is not a current EU member and
would not be accepted as such even if the UK withdrew. A breakaway
Scotland would still be a new applicant for EU membership, as was
repeatedly explained during the independence referendum.
Therefore
the actual question should be: Would you like to leave the UK and
take a chance that our subsequent application to join the EU would
not be vetoed by Spain and other member states anxious to avoid
giving encouragement to restless ethnic minorities?
Does it make any sense at all to erect a border against our largest
export market, the UK, in order to retain free trade with much
smaller markets in the EU?
Is it remotely credible that the UK would leave the EU in a bid to
cut immigration and then allow freedom of travel across the border
with an EU Scotland?
Bearing in mind the chaos of the currency question during the
independence referendum, does anyone seriously believe the UK would
exit the EU and allow Scotland to take sterling straight back in?
EU rules require new members to join the Eurozone. How many people
really want to join a system that has strangled economic growth,
plunged its poorer members into impossible debt and obliged its
richer members to bail them out?
Simply to state these issues is to show the foolishness of the
assumption noted in my first paragraph. I do worry however that
Europhiles will harp upon this refrain until more and more people in
Scotland assume that it must be true.
