Jim Sillars: It’s time to ditch EU, Alex

Independence in Europe has been the SNP slogan for more than 20 years, but it makes a Yes vote in the referendum unlikely

THIS article will upset many in the SNP. But far better to be upset by a reasoned critique now, aimed at giving them an intellectual jolt that will better prepare the party for the “trial” of independence conducted by big-league players, like Cameron, Osborne, Hague, Rifkind, Forsyth, Darling, Brown, backed up by the Cabinet office team now working up an onslaught of difficult questions and issues, for the unionist side in the referendum campaign.

Alex Salmond’s weekly battering of the Holyrood opposition is not how it will be when the big question is put. Although towering above the little people at Holyrood, he will be engaged by the Westminster team. One striking area of SNP weakness is how deep it is into the EU-euro black hole, and still digging.

Continuing to subscribe to the post-Lisbon EU and eurozone will prove a deadly combination against the Yes vote.

There will be serious consequences of a No vote, not so far considered. If the SNP loses, what next? Political business as usual? Wrong. Business as usual in Scotland, ever since Winnie Ewing won Hamilton, Margo MacDonald won Govan and the SNP’s rise under Salmond’s leadership, has been unionist efforts to stave off independence by ratcheting up Scotland’s powers within the UK.

Labour boasts of creating the Scottish Parliament, but it didn’t do that in a political vacuum. The SNP and the growing independence movement have been the spur to constitutional change on the devolution route. If neither had been in existence, Labour devolutionists would not have been able to overcome the unionist bloc in the party.

Independence has been the lever of change. Take it away with a No vote and we shall find Westminster with no reason to be bothered further with Scotland’s ambitions, because we shall have none.

A No will not necessarily scupper an SNP government at the next Scottish Parliament election, but Downing Street could live with that. Calman is the most we shall ever get. Alex Salmond could tour every television studio in the land, protesting the deal he gets from Westminster, and his words would disappear into a fog of disinterest in London. Without independence, a post-referendum First Minister is a fringe figure.

Unionist MPs in Westminster and a Secretary of State for Scotland (if there is one) will have no SNP/independence threat as a weapon to use if a UK government produces policies detrimental to our nation. With a Yes vote, nothing in the present UK political structures will matter, because they will be gone; but if we destroy the independence lever, we weaken our position in the UK. That is why I am worried about the SNP’s continued adherence to the post-Lisbon EU.

There are good reasons for worry about the party’s position on Europe. Today’s EU is not the one we sought independence in over 20 years ago, and there remains the question of whether an independent Scotland will get a smooth passage to full membership.

The Lisbon Treaty is the original constitution for a European state, with cosmetic changes. It gives great power to the central authorities in Brussels. Member states’ sovereignty, if it ever was, is not shared but is permanently transferred in key areas to what is, for all intents and purposes, a new sovereign. When independence in Europe became SNP policy in the 1980s, there were a baker’s dozen members of the EU, all with a veto to protect national interests. Today there are 27 around the table (28 in 2013), with majority voting the norm. As recently demonstrated, the 27 are not equal. The Franco-German axis has taken advantage of the plethora of small and medium-sized states, none of which can provide a balance against it, to stamp its authority on the whole. Intervention by Merkel and Sarkozy unseated elected governments in Italy and Greece. The more members, the greater the dilution of member states’ sovereign powers.

This profound change in the EU seems to have gone unnoticed by the SNP. There has been no critique of Lisbon, or of the proposed eurozone treaty, and the language employed against Cameron’s veto by Alex Salmond sounded like a eurofanatic in full flight.

A party that, rightly, railed against the handcuffs on economic policy imposed by membership of the British state, seems blithely unaware that is exactly what is now proposed for the eurozone: the very core of independence and democracy, raising and spending taxes with accountability to the people, is to be subject to control by a non-elected Commission. How can the SNP support that and not realise that Cameron was right, and is now being proved right as other peoples in Europe begin to understand just what vital independence they will lose if they sign up to a transfer of that core sovereignty.

If Scotland is to seize the opportunity that will come with independence to repair its economy, and overcome the deficit of inherited debt from the UK, then it must be able to exercise the maximum sovereign powers. There will be no such maximum available in the new eurozone treaty.

The coming referendum on the principle of independence and SNP policy on Europe and much else besides are, in theory, two different matters, but are entwined. There is not a cat’s chance in hell of the SNP carrying the independence vote with the present policy of being a lapdog to the German/French/Commission ruling triumvirate.

There is another worry, whether there will be a smooth, automatic path to becoming the 29th member state. Both in terms of international law on state succession and common sense, if Scotland votes for independence, it should automatically gravitate to the European Council table. Why put someone out who is already in? Seems simple. But it is not.

The SNP frequently quotes the late Lord Mackenzie-Stuart and the late Eamonn Gallagher, both intimate with the legal rules of international law, as proof of automatic continued membership. Neither gave his opinion in an official capacity. Here, however, is what a Commission official had to say on 12 September, 2009: “In principle the Commission would give an opinion that Scotland could enter the EU because most of the European directives are already in force through the UK… But in practice it would have to go through every country’s parliament… One can legitimately expect that Spanish politicians in Madrid would want Scotland to have a bumpy ride… The notion that Scotland becoming a member state is seamless is highly optimistic. There’s nobody in the world who knows how that would work.”

The problem with the relevant piece of international law is that there is no-one who can enforce it. The UN? Unlikely, given the Chinese and Russian view of secession. We can be sure, as the fearmongering gets under way, that the SNP’s claim of automatic membership will be challenged, by other EU states with secession possibilities of their own. The problem is that the matter cannot be tested until we vote Yes, and that nagging doubt will tell against the SNP campaign. That is why I have been speaking (into a void) about the alternative, membership of EFTA, which has a free trade and movement of capital and labour agreement with the EU called the European Economic Area.

Perhaps because it has been too easy for Alex Salmond to dominate Holyrood, the party has not needed to face up to some very hard issues that will confront it in the referendum, especially on the EU. They had better start thinking about them now, because the other side already has.

• Jim Sillars is a former deputy leader of the SNP.