Sunday, 6th November 2011
Scotland’s Greek Tragedy
This article was originally published in The Sunday Times on 6 November 2011
Scotland's Greek Tragedy, by Struan Stevenson MEP
A great drama is being played out in Europe. As in most great dramas, the onlookers cannot tell at the midpoint whether it will end in tragedy or in triumph for the chief protagonists; in a new, rational model for the EU’s continuance or in the collapse of the entire European project.
Another feature of the great dramas is how, while the heroes and heroines battle it out, the bit players are casually consigned to a sticky end. To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who set out in pursuit of Hamlet and finish up dead, we might usefully compare Alex Salmond and John Swinney, as they seek to come to terms with a changed and changing Europe, which finds it hard to see a place for them in the on-going narrative.
An independent Scotland could, of course, apply to join this changed and changing Europe. But we need not delude ourselves that it would be welcomed there with open arms.
It is certainly arguable – and the SNP argues it – that when a member country splits, two or more successor states could automatically continue in membership of the European Union. But the weight of opinion is that the country that originally signed the European treaties, in our case the United Kingdom, would continue as a member on its existing terms. The separating country would in effect become a new applicant, having to negotiate its own terms of entry.
Such a negotiation is indeed foreseen by the SNP in the hope of getting better terms than before. Applicant countries have often been disappointed in such hopes. But there is no doubt at all that not only the applicant government, but also each of the remaining members, would have to agree to the results. This is because they would all be required to sign the revised treaty of accession that followed.
And it is on that practical point, regardless of the legal position, that the SNP’s argument falls down. The awkward fact for Salmond and Swinney is that other European countries see themselves as threatened by separatist movements. Spain faces nationalist pressure in Catalonia and the Basque Country, France in regions like Brittany and Occitania, while Italy fears a north-south split.
This is why the expectation that the EU will be party to partitioning its own existing member countries is nonsense. The idea will never be accepted in Spain, France or Italy. They will vote against the membership of an independent Scotland because of the encouragement it would give to their own separatists.
In any case, we must not leave aside the possibility that the continuing United Kingdom – now of England, Wales and Northern Ireland – might also come out against an independent Scotland in Europe.
The SNP’s shortsightedness is the problem here. Salmond and Swinney take every chance to exploit differences between Scotland and our next-door neighbours. A consequence is that anti-Scottish feeling in England has grown. It can be seen on blogs and websites every day. Relations today between the English and the Scots are probably worse than relations between two older sets of antagonists, the English and the Irish, now that the peace process has begun to work its benign effects on both sides of the Irish Sea.
With the growth in English nationalism, we cannot be sure the separation of Scotland would be free of ill-feeling. Nor can we be certain that the continuing government in London would adopt a kindly and accommodating view in all the disagreements bound to arise in relations with Edinburgh (this is indeed already the case under devolution today). The ill-feeling might go so far that English support for separate Scottish membership of the EU could not be taken for granted either. The UK would be quite within its rights to veto Scotland’s accession.
Where would all this leave the SNP’s long-standing policy of `independence in Europe’? In ruins, most likely. Scotland, instead of advancing into a bright European future of the SNP’s imagination, would be retreating into isolation and obscurity: precisely the opposite of the intended effect. The quest for independence, a long and difficult one to which many people had devoted themselves, might actually have turned out to be self-defeating.
Not, it must be said, that Scotland would be problem-free even if the SNP’s policy of independence in Europe somehow succeeded. There has in any event always lurked at the bottom of this debate a nagging question for Nationalists: Why, if the centralism of London is so unacceptable, should the centralism of Brussels be any better?
The fraught negotiations over the euro during recent weeks have made clearer than ever the absolute dominance in the EU of Germany and France, with Germany the primary partner. Smaller countries have found little part to play during the crisis, merely waiting in the wings to hear the results of all-night talks behind closed doors between Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy. The leader of the next biggest Eurozone country, Silvio Berlusconi, was only called in to be hauled over the coals for Italy’s fiscal failures.
Britain, not being a member of the Eurozone, has been outside the negotiations anyway, but at least has been able to take steps with other non-members such as Poland and Sweden to safeguard its position. The euro has, in other words, created huge difficulties for every country; a strange outcome for a single currency supposed to bring them all together.
Where would an independent Scotland have stood amid this unholy mess? The first issue is whether it would have switched from sterling to the euro as its own currency. Salmond used to be an enthusiast for this, but as the current crisis has built up, his ardour has cooled. Apparently, he now thinks it might be better to stick with sterling, so continuing to have much of his economic policy set by the monetary authorities in London.
On the other hand, if Scotland had joined the Eurozone, it would now face the prospect of getting its economic policy dictated by Brussels, or indeed by Berlin. The consequence of the recent bailout deal between Merkel and Sarkozy will be, if it is ever fully implemented, much stricter control over the domestic economic policies of every country using the euro; no more huge deficits, no more public spending splurges, no more special tax breaks for this vested interest or that.
In other words, Greece as the Greeks would have it will cease to be. Similarly, there would be no more Scotland of the sort that Salmond offers us, with its high expenditure, its abundant welfare and its free services to any group of voters he wants to woo, all financed not from tax on citizens of Scotland but from North Sea oil-funded handouts from London.
The people of Scotland must put it to Salmond that neither of the alternative policies he has been pushing will in fact work to our benefit. Both mean that the Scots’ economic fate will be sealed somewhere else, whether in London, Brussels or Berlin.
Another course possibly open to Scotland would be the Norwegian model, of a small country using its oil revenues to remain outside any scheme of political and economic integration with bigger neighbours. There will be those who see advantages in that, but they must also be weighed with rigour against the advantages of staying in the UK, a big economy where Scots have always exerted, and still exert, a major influence of benefit to ourselves and others.
All we can say for certain is that the chances of survival for the SNP dream of `independence in Europe’ broadly mirror those of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the play: dead in the water.
STRUAN STEVENSON, MEP
Struan Stevenson is a Conservative Euro MP for Scotland
