Former deputy leader of the SNP Jim Sillars says the Remain argument from Scottish nationalists doesn’t stack up
THERE are many sound reasons why Scots who support independence should vote for us to leave the EU.
I am not alone in seeing EU membership as a barrier to our aspirations rather than a facilitator of them. There is plenty of evidence, from polls and experience, showing almost half of SNP voters do not want the UK, or Scotland, to remain within the European Union.
That may put us at odds with the SNP’s official position, but with the election out of the way, and the next one years away, we can address the Brexit issue openly and honestly as thinking citizens, not party activists or SNP voters.
I don’t think the courage that goes with convictions has died inside the SNP, so it’s time for those who back Brexit to say so.
In any case, it is chillingly abnormal within a democratic party, for all elected members and activists, to be expected to hold to exactly the same line irrespective of personal opinions on an issue which should transcend party interests.
It simply isn’t plausible that all SNP MPs, MSPs, councillors and activists, are of a single mind with the party leadership on the EU. I don’t think the courage that goes with convictions has died inside the SNP, so it’s time for those who back Brexit to say so.
Firstly, why should we support an EU whose leaders, in 2014, repeated their rejectionist message of 2004 that if Scotland should become independent we’d be out and sent to the back of the queue to apply from scratch? That message, sowing seeds of uncertainty, played into the welcoming hands of Better Together in 2014 and there’s no evidence that the EU has changed its mind on independence.
In a second independence referendum, the EU will do the same again, seeking to crush our aspirations as it did before.
Secondly, there is fisheries. The Common Fisheries Policy has decimated what was a thriving Scottish industry, on catch and processing sides. For years the SNP has pressed for a reform that’s impossible without unanimous agreement of all 28 EU member states, which will never happen because the other fishing countries want continued access to our waters.
Why should we support an EU whose leaders, in 2014, repeated their rejectionist message of 2004 that if Scotland should become independent we’d be out and sent to the back of the queue to apply from scratch?
In the EU, which doesn’t want an independent Scotland, land-locked Luxembourg with a population the size of Edinburgh has more power over fisheries than we do. Voting to remain is to embrace the utter powerlessness of the status quo.
Voting to leave means in fisheries and agriculture Scotland will achieve what years of wailing and gnashing of teeth have failed to deliver. Out of the EU, means out of the CFP, and control over fisheries and agriculture coming to Holyrood, not Westminster. Full control of our own fishing waters is a prize the SNP is advising us to vote against on 23 June.
Lastly, there is also the small matter of democracy. The EU is deeply flawed on that score. When the SNP backed the policy of independence in Europe, there were 12 member states, all with the veto to defend national interests. The veto has in most cases disappeared, to be replaced with majority and qualified majority voting. The demise of the national veto has strengthened the elite in the centre – the unelected European Commission.
In a democracy one would expect a government to be drawn from an elected parliament. If that principle were to apply in the EU, it would require the European Parliament to genuinely reflect pan-European views on policies. It does not and it cannot, because the citizens of the 28 member states lack the necessary homogeneity.
In the European Parliament, Scotland’s six MEPs represent one per cent of the 751 total membership, yet, incredibly, there are nationalists arguing that we should remain in that unequal union.
Huge, historic, cultural and political chasms exist between the people of the EU, which is why there are no pan-European political parties.
Lawmaking in the EU is controlled by the Commission initiating a proposal, with the European Parliament consulted and the Council of Ministers making a final decision. The Commission is a self-selecting, self regarding unaccountable elite, initiating and implementing legislation, wielding extensive executive power; it is the antithesis of how democracy should work.
For decades, Scots who support independence have pointed to the democratic deficit at Westminster, where Scotland’s 59 MPs represent just nine per cent of the total of 650, marginalising our interests and confining us to permanent minority status. They have rightly argued that we should leave such an unequal union.
In the European Parliament, Scotland’s six MEPs represent one per cent of the 751 total membership, yet, incredibly, there are nationalists arguing that we should remain in that unequal union.
The question at the heart of this referendum is simple: do we want to continue being governed by an organisation we do not elect and cannot reject or do we want to bring democracy home, in exactly the way generations of nationalists have urged us to?
If the UK comes out of the EU, then Scotland will be free of all EU interference in our domestic affairs, including on the issue of independence.
If the UK comes out of the EU, then Scotland will be free of all EU interference in our domestic affairs, including on the issue of independence, where its past interventions have damaged our cause. Once the SNP’s misguided obsession with EU membership is ended, we can look at alternatives that are in our national interest rather than subverting it.
The European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which has served Norway so well, is an outstandingly successful example.
It is an alternative which proves that working closely with other countries need not rob us of the essentials of sovereignty and independence.
The CommonSpace opinion section is an open platform for anyone who wants to voice their views and does not represent the editorial position of CommonSpace itself. If you’d like to have a piece published, email CommonSpace editor Angela Haggerty at angela@common.scot
Picture courtesy of Calum Miller/Jim Sillars