FINANCE Minister John Swinney has been accused of acting like a "scoundrel" over refusing to accept the European Commission's position that an independent Scotland would be outside the EU.

John Swinney rebuffed EC president Jose Manuel Barroso's declaration that an independent Scotland would have to apply for EU membership, saying the claim had "no foundation". But Lord Lipsey, a Labour peer, described the SNP position as "the last refuge of a scoundrel".

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