Independence is Scotland's only route back into the European Union - Alyn Smith

If we in Scotland are removed from our family of nations against our will – against our clearly democratically expressed view – independence will be our only route back. Chers collègues, I’m not asking you to solve our domestic discussions. I am asking you to leave a light on, so that we can find our way home.”

It may be a little egotistical to open with a quote from myself, back in Strasbourg on 21 March 2019, but after all, I was right.

It made me so happy yesterday to march alongside so many EU enthusiasts through the streets of our national capital in the March for EU membership.

"I listened to our First Minister and my party leader Humza Yousaf, and was struck that the SNP has a clear ambition for Scotland, independence in Europe, that no other party can match for ambition, clarity, and indeed steely determination to do better than we are.

As well as representing Stirling down in Westminster, I serve as Europe and EU Accession Spokesperson for the SNP. I’m working on getting Scotland back into the EU. I’m not in charge of our election or referendum strategy, but I’m making sure that when we get there we will have done our homework and will be the best prepared EU accession candidate in history. It is a role that I relish, keeping channels open to friends and colleagues in Brussels, keeping them abreast of our domestic debate, and indeed reaching out to progressive voices in UK politics to suggest ways in which the UK can have as deep and close and functioning a relationship with the EU as possible.

Because, and this will be difficult for some folks to read, I am 100 per cent certain that the UK is not rejoining the EU any time soon. I’m sad to say it, but it is quite possible it will not rejoin in my lifetime.

There are a number of reasons for my conclusion. I worked harder than most in the 2016 EU referendum, and the other parties were posted missing even then. The Tories were split and Labour disinterested. Even, if I’m honest, in the SNP it was an uphill struggle to get much enthusiasm going, such was the unanimity of view that this was a daft referendum David Cameron and Nigel Farage had inflicted on us. But fast forward the here and now and it gets worse, I have been staggered since I got in to Westminster at the extent to which so many of my MP colleagues truly do have no functioning relationship with anywhere but the Palace of Westminster, the EU is a far off thing to be seen through our domestic prism. The Tories remain hopelessly split on EU membership, even now, and I’m sad to say Labour is posted missing. This is evident in the discussion, even amongst those who are in favour of EU membership of what rejoining as the UK would entail.

Because the deal the UK had is not the reality the UK would rejoin into. I always opposed the UK opt outs from Justice and Home Affairs co-operation, participation in economic and monetary union and indeed the UK financial rebate because I think all those things entrenched a rather sniffy arms length relationship, but all those things are off the table now. The EU has moved on. It is a bitter irony that the relationship with the EU will continue to dominate UK politics for the foreseeable future, but in Brussels the Brits are a decidedly minority interest. War in Ukraine, instability in the Western Balkans, EU enlargement, climate change and energy security are what the EU is talking about, the Brits are just a problem to be managed by a small team in a backroom.

Rejoining the EU will necessitate a real-world, hard-edged discussion about where the UK is, and what it needs to trade off in order to accept shared sovereignty. I just don’t see the political maturity in the UK to have that discussion.

I do in Scotland. For better or worse, we’re used to being part of something else, and comfortable with multi-layered identity and government. I think that simple fact accounts for our clear pro-EU vote in 2016, not that we were necessarily starry eyed EU aficionados, just that we were instinctively comfortable with the idea that we were represented in Edinburgh and London, so why not Brussels too as a bloc of 500 million?

In 2014 the SNP’s proposition was that after a Yes vote we would negotiate for Scotland to join the EU, Single Market and Customs Union, which we were already in as part of the UK. Many did not see the need for change, not because they were hostile to independence but because they just liked what they had. In 2016 it was taken away from us. Independence will get it back. We will not be acceding to the EU from within (a reality that caused a certain squeamishness amongst other EU states) but joining from outwith, a well trodden path the same as every other state since 1956. Independence in Europe will put rocket boosters on Scotland’s recovery from Covid, and indeed help us rebuild out of the UK, which I’m sad to say looks every bit the sick man of Europe.

The SNP has an energising, clear, ambitious and achievable vision for Scotland, and I’m proud to be working towards it.

- Alyn Smith is the SNP MP for Stirling and the SNP Europe shadow spokesperson.