IN

by Alyn Smyth MEP

It is safe to say that sovereignty is close to an SNP member’s heart. We’ve thought about it quite a lot. One of the strangest arguments I’ve heard in recent months is that as a nationalist, I can’t be in favour of the European Union and should want independence, nothing less. Firstly, this vote isn't about Scotland’s independence. We had a referendum about that recently and a majority of the population said no. They still need to be persuaded, and I think we can, but this is a different vote about a different issue.

The why-one-union-but-not-another jibe takes us nowhere. The UK and EU are not like with like. Besides, where I want the best for Scotland, I also want the best for the UK. In recent weeks I’ve shared platforms with nationalists, unionists, Tories, Labour, all politics and none, united in our wish to remain within the EU. This does not mean we agree on anything else, nor is it intellectual inconsistency to highlight the thing we do agree on when so much is at stake.

Each party has their own perspective of course, which is why each party has its own campaign. In the SNP, we’re an internationalist party. Right the way back to Winnie Ewing in 1967 it was “Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on”. We want independence not to pretend we’re separate or apart, but to join the world, to play our part, to work with other independent countries towards common endeavours. We’re part of the UK and we want the UK to do the same.

In my view, the people of Scotland are sovereign. End of. Modern nations recognise that no man, nor woman, nor nation, is an island. In the modern world we voluntarily accept limitations on our freedom towards the common good. A red light at a traffic crossing infringes my personal liberty, but a society with rules we all stick to gives us all better outcomes, compared to the alternative.

The same works for countries. The EU is a project. A war avoidance project, and a very successful one. A project to get the people of Europe to get to know each other by living working, studying, travelling across each other’s borders with a minimum of fuss. It is also a market, and all markets need rules so that commerce happens fairly and consumers are protected. We now agree weights and measures in concert with 500 million people. Every single EU rule has been democratically agreed by 28 democratically elected governments, and the democratically elected MEPs on behalf of their citizens.

Yes, these rules limit our sovereignty. Voluntarily, for so long as we allow. We made them, agreed to them and yes, we all benefit from them, many times over. If we’re serious about fighting tax evasion, climate change, the refugee crisis or the economy, we’ll achieve more co-operating across the continent. We can also get the sovereignty back any time we want so long as we are willing to suffer the consequences on our own sovereign heads.

And lets think of the consequences of Leave. We’re Scots, with Norway and Iceland near neighbours we know there are plenty other ways of interacting with the EU. They’re poor options for Scotland and they’re not on the table. Either would leave us obliged to implement all the rules, paying through the nose to do so, but giving up our say in their formulation.

This is an illusion of sovereignty and as I say, not even on the table. It is telling that the Leave campaign has been careful to give us zero details on what they want to replace all the guaranteed advantages of our multilateral voluntary co-operation with. Voting Leave, now, only gives everything to what will be an unfettered, emboldened, UKIP-led Tory party.

And for those who claim that Leave will mean more powers for Holyrood - how? We have just gone through the Smith Commission process, with 'The Vow' filleted at every opportunity. You think these same people will suddenly permit more devolution? You think Nigel Farage, who barely years ago wanted to abolish Holyrood, suddenly wants to strengthen it? What the rag bag of neo-cons call red tape I’d call essential protection for Scottish workers. BHS and Sports Direct? That's what they want the economy to look like.

Sovereignty is absolute, but if we want what’s best it can be shared too. Within the EU we do and benefit massively from that sharing. Outwith the EU we’d only hand it all to people who think sovereignty begins and ends in a Palace by the Thames. I fail to see how that advances Scotland’s interests. Remaining in the EU, even in the UK, is best for Scotland.

Alyn Smith is an SNP MEP

OUT

By Rev David Robertson

“Scotland free by 93” is an SNP slogan from the dim and distant past. It has now been replaced by “an independent country in an interdependent Europe”. Nice soundbite but what does it mean? It all has to do with the vexed question of sovereignty and what it means to be an independent, free country.

In Scotland it has been the mantra of the Scottish National Party for a long time that sovereignty should lie with the Scottish people.

But now there has been a significant change within SNP thinking. The argument is for an independent Scotland within the EU because ‘sovereignty’ in the modern world is never absolute and needs to be shared. Modern Western democracies were based upon the Christian premise that only God is sovereign and that everyone else, governments, families and individuals, share or reflect that sovereignty. The separation of church and state was key to the development of liberal democracies. The irony is that when the State replaces God, it too often assumes absolute sovereignty. But most democrats recognize that sovereignty is limited. If we wish to have international co-operation, trade agreements, peace etc, then it will mean that we voluntarily limit our sovereignty, unless we want to become like North Korea. The question then becomes, what is the difference between an independent country in an interdependent Europe and an independent country in an interdependent UK?

Our voice in Europe would be smaller than it is in the UK. Furthermore by any standard the EU is much less democratic than the UK parliament. We can at least vote out our MPs; we cannot vote out the most powerful political group in the EU – the commissioners. The notion that a people should determine its own policies is surely one that is core to the SNP, or indeed any democrat. Handing power over to other nations and corporate interests is against everything the SNP should be standing for. Scotland’s fishermen, farmers and industrial workers should be governed by Scotland’s politicians, not those of either the EU or the UK. It is a strange kind of independence when you are not free to make your own laws, or your own trading agreements.

The EU means a diminution, not only of sovereignty, but also of democracy. We are handing power away from our elected representatives to an unelected political executive (the EU commission). The irony here is that when the SNP, Labour and other self-styled progressives give us reasons for staying in the EU, they cite things such as workers rights. What they are in effect saying is that if Scotland governs itself we could not be trusted to have workers rights. Instead we have to rely on unelected Eurocrats to protect us from ourselves. The SNP say they want us to have a stronger voice in Europe – but that voice is pointless if we have no power. The way that the EU is set up at the moment, there is no possibility of that happening. If anything the EU is going to become more centralized. As one left wing commentator observed: “Every pro-EU argument boils down to ‘You can’t trust the plebs’.”

What does this handover of sovereignty mean in practice? It means that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) can over-rule the SNP government on minimum pricing of alcohol, despite a democratic mandate. It means that the Scottish government commitment to denying companies who evade tax from bidding for public procurement contracts (as announced at the STUC in April) would be struck down by the ECJ.

As regards sovereignty it is also worth pointing out that we are not just talking about fishing, minimum alcohol pricing, the shape of cucumbers. The Treaty of Lisbon makes clear that the EU aspires to be a federal state with its own armed forces and its own foreign policy, which member states will be required to follow. The real question on the June 23 is not whether we wish to remain in the EU but whether we wish to join the United States of Europe, where the sovereignty of the Scottish people will be so diminished that we might as well call ourselves a county instead of a country. We will be reduced from regional status within the UK to sub-regional status in the EU.

On the other hand, if the UK votes to leave the EU it will mean more powers and sovereignty for the Scottish parliament. Fishing would be devolved to the Scottish parliament. Who is better to run the Scottish fishing industry – democratically elected Scottish government ministers, or Brussels bureaucrats?

What is disturbing here is that the vote on June 23 is not about Scotland being an independent country within the EU (the EU has already made its opposition known to the idea of an independent Scotland being welcomed into its club); it is about whether the UK remains in the EU. By standing with Cameron and Osborne, Nicola Sturgeon is unwittingly putting back the dream of Scottish independence for many years. The SNP are urging us to vote to remain in an undemocratic EU where we will be represented by an unelected commissioner appointed by the Conservative government. It is the worst of both worlds.

Spokesman for “SNP for Leave” and former Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland