SCOTLAND would be in an "emphatically strong place" if it becomes the only nation in the UK to retain access to the EU single market post-Brexit, a leading lawyer has said.
Philip Rodney, chairman of Scottish legal firm Burness Paull, said such an outcome could trigger a "renaissance" for Edinburgh and Glasgow as key European centres of finance.
Writing in the Herald today, Mr Rodney admits that the shock outcome of last week's referendum has also led him to reconsider his previous opposition to Scottish independence.
He said: "I voted No in the IndyRef and voted Remain in the EU Referendum. Nationalism as a political force has seemed at odds with my perspective as a committed European and internationalist ...
"While I would still find it hard to bring myself to vote to break up the United Kingdom, I would not find it difficult to support moves by Scotland to remain in the EU even if other parts of the UK chose to do something else."
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said last week that she found it "democratically unacceptable" that Scotland, where 62 per cent of voters backed Remain, could be ejected from the EU against its will as a result of the UK Leave vote.
She is seeking talks with EU leaders and has not ruled out a second independence referendum to ensure Scotland can remain an EU member, with access to the single market.
Mr Rodney, a commercial litigator, said this "could put Scotland in an emphatically strong place".
He added: "Ironically, after years of gradual leakage of financial services activity from Scotland to the City, Edinburgh and Glasgow could see a renaissance as centres of the financial services sector.
"They have the expertise, the heritage and capacity to do so – and from a cost base that is a fraction of the norm in the Golden Mile."
It comes as the executive chairman of Cicero Group, Iain Anderson, held talks SNP over moves to position Edinburgh as a centre of financial services.
Mr Anderson, whose clients include City heavyweights BlackRock, Rio Tinto and Barclays, said his firm would be willing to back the party's plans to access Europe.
He told business website City A.M.: “I'm engaging with the SNP directly because in the political vacuum we now have in Westminster, financial services firms need to know whether or not there are options, and if one of those options is the single market in Edinburgh then that has to be treated seriously.”
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