Scotland's Referendum: Informing the Debate

John Peterson, University of Edinburgh

Professor John Peterson, Professor of International Politics at the University of Edinburgh, argues that the promise of an EU referendum is not a game-changer in the debate on Scottish independence, but that it does change the game for the UK’s future on the international stage.

Last Monday, David Lidington MP, Minister of State at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, gave evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee meeting in Edinburgh on issues surrounding the foreign policy implications of Scottish independence. We were pleased he also took the time to meet with staff and students at the University of Edinburgh.

But my own view is that that these sessions spend time talking about things that are largely unimportant, since I find it hard to imagine that – when Scottish voters finally pull the trigger – a majority will opt for independence. Given that the vote is more than a year away in 2014, I could be wrong. But I cannot see a ‘yes’ majority emerging next year or in the foreseeable future.

While I yield to no-one in my respect and admiration for Michael Keating (see his Scotland on Sunday article posted on this blog), I don’t really view the Conservative Party’s ‘renegotiate and referendum’ policy on Europe as changing the political equation surrounding the Scottish independence referendum. For one thing, the timing – on Scottish independence and the UK’s status in the EU – doesn’t sync, as any possible referendum on ‘in or out of Europe’ won’t occur (barring anything unforeseen) until 2017 at the earliest. For another, the SNP has badly mismanaged the question of an independent Scotland’s EU membership, with the result that relatively few presently undecided or ‘no’ voters are likely to switch to the ‘yes’ camp on the grounds that a vote for independence is a vote for continued EU membership. Finally, the polls (admittedly based on very low numbers) tell us that Scots are only marginally less Eurosceptic than other Brits.

In my own remarks to the Minister of State, I tried to impress upon him that the Prime Minister’s long-delayed speech on Europe made the Conservative Party position sound about as reasonable as possible, especially to people who don’t understand how the EU works, or the UK’s present standing in it. My guess is that most British voters think that the EU needs the UK more than the other way around, especially given Cameron’s past rhetoric about how Brussels ‘picks the pocket of the UK tax-payer’. But the EU works on the basis of compromise and consensus and Cameron has profoundly irritated other EU leaders with his uncompromising tone and behaviour (even challenging the right of the other 26 member states to use EU buildings to negotiate a new treaty).

In my view, the Prime Minister is on a hiding to nothing. If Scotland does vote ‘Yes’, it may well require all 28 member states (after Croatia joins on 1 July of this year) to agree to the terms of an independent Scotland’s EU membership. Getting consensus in today’s European Union is no easy task. But the exact same logic will apply to Cameron’s attempts at ‘renegotiation’. Like Michael Keating, I would expect other EU member states to grant the UK only very limited concessions in the main areas where Cameron has signalled he will ask for them: employment, environment and social policy.

There is no other issue – with the arguable exception of immigration – that Cameron has so mismanaged as the UK’s place within the EU. That has been the case since the time he first took over as party leader and signed off on the shift of Tory MEPs from their group in the European Parliament – the European Peoples’ Party (the largest by far in the EP) – to a much smaller one that includes very conservative east European parties that flirt with racism. Conservative MEPs were far better placed to be heard and to shape policy when they were members of the EPP. More recently, the endless delays in the actual delivery of Cameron’s speech on Europe – which he himself compared with ‘tantric sex’ – allowed the views of Europhobes on his backbenches (not to mention UKIP) to get far more ventilation in the media than was necessary. Ironically and miraculously, I suspect the long-term effect of the rhetoric of Tory Eurosceptics is to play into the hands of both UKIP and the SNP. Europe is the single issue that future historians are likely to associate with the words ‘David Cameron’, but it is unlikely to be a positive legacy.

If Cameron is committed to a positive agenda on Europe, then I propose it goes something like this:

Europe is a small, crowded peninsula of Asia;
it is composed overwhelmingly of small countries who must:
cooperate to prosper or even to survive,
especially at a time when by most measures Europe is losing power relative to emerging states such as China, India and Brazil.

Michael Keating is right that Cameron’s speech on Europe was a game-changer. But the game it changes is one about the UK’s future international role and not a game about Scottish independence. It is interesting and very revealing that the Obama administration has made it crystal clear that it takes a very dim view of how Cameron has acted to isolate the UK in Europe. Raymond Seitz, a talented US Ambassador to the UK, said upon his retirement in the 1990s that London’s influence in Washington was directly proportionate to its influence in Berlin, Paris, Rome and (especially) Brussels. Nothing has changed since then, except that the UK is more isolated in Europe than it has been since the ‘I want my money back’ days of Mrs Thatcher.

Dr Juliet Kaarbo, University of Edinburgh

As attention focuses on the future of the UK and Scotland in the European Union, Dr Juliet Kaarbo reflects on the opportunities and constraints that an independent Scotland as a small European state could face on the international stage. 

What would be the nature of an independent Scottish foreign policy? What kind of influence would an independent Scotland have in world affairs? With the referendum for independence less than two years away, these are the types of questions Scottish voters, and interested global actors, are asking. The UK government is also interested in these questions. I recently served as a witness and provided oral testimony for the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in the third public evidence sessions in its inquiry on The Foreign Policy Implications of and for a Separate Scotland (video available here). My testimony was informed by my own research on the foreign policies of many countries. I focused on what we know about small state foreign policy and how that can shed light on an independent Scotland’s place in the world.

An independent Scotland would certainly be a small state, given the size of its GDP, population, and territory. Like other small states, Scotland would have more limited resources in terms of economic, military, diplomatic, and informational tools. Small states face considerable constraints. Their relationships to others are characterized by power asymmetries. In economics, this translates into dependence on others as their economy is easily affected by others’ actions. In security, they must rely on larger allies for protection from any threats they face, and small states like Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands often feel pressured to contribute troops to military interventions in order to remain in good standing with their larger security partners.

Small states, similar to large ones, also face internal challenges to their foreign policies – from the public, from divided political parties, from bureaucratic organizations, and from political opposition in parliaments. With all of these constraints, a traditional, dominant view of small states in international relations is that they “suffer what they must” (as Thucydides put it), they are Lilliputians in Gulliver’s world.

Another view, and body of research, sees some small states at times able to ‘punch above their weight’ and have disproportionate influence in global politics. How do they do this? There are a number of tools that small states can use. Being active members of international organisations (IOs) is very important for small countries. IOs give states a diplomatic space, information networks, and a place to coordinate collective action. Small states can also partner with non-governmental organisations to help them gather information and advocate policies. Small states, if they are lucky enough to establish an economic niche, can use that to their advantage. Even though they are a small economy, highly profitable specializations can sometimes translate into influence in economic affairs. Small states also usually practice niche diplomacy, prioritising and concentrating their fewer resources on a specific area, rather than attempting to cover the range of global issues that large states do. They can also be innovative in terms of leadership and institutions. At one time, for example, the Netherlands had two separate departments dealing with foreign affairs. When someone asked the prime minister why a small state like the Netherlands needed two foreign ministries, the prime minister responded that because the Netherlands was so small and the abroad was very big, they have to do extra to cover all it all.

Soft power is another way that small states punch above their weight within or outside IOs. The way small states use soft power is often different from the way large states use it. They actually try to capitalise on their weakness and their fewer resources. They will use the fact that, unlike big states, they are not seen as a threat or as holding hidden agendas. With this, they can play the role of trusted mediators to raise the profile of their state. Norway in the Arab-Israeli conflict and Costa Rica in the Central American conflicts of the 1980s are examples. Small states are often successful at securing leadership positions in IOs, because they are seen as more neutral and less domineering, as Ghana and South Korea have held the recent posts of UN Secretary General. Because they are seen as less of a potential threat, they can also serve as homes for IO headquarters. Examples include The Hague, Brussels and Geneva. Small states also often frame their goals in terms of morals or fundamental values. Big states do that too, but they are often not believed when they do so. Small states, with soft power credibility, can be more effective when they use moral appeals.

The takeaway message for an independent Scotland is that its small size would certainly mean a loss of objective capabilities – it would no longer be part of a bigger state, the UK. Nevertheless, small states’ foreign policies are not completely determined by their size and resource disadvantages. Scotland’s leaders, however, would have to quickly learn the practice of small state diplomacy and determine their priorities.

Dr Juliet Kaarbo is a Senior Lecturer and Postgraduate Adviser for Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. 

Dr. Daniel Kenealy, Academy of Government

Dr. Daniel Kenealy weighs in on the debate about Scotland’s status within the European Union should Scotland vote for independence.

‘This government’, stated Scotland’s Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on 13 December 2012, ‘believes that Scotland benefits, economically and socially, from EU membership and that the EU benefits – enormously – from having Scotland as a member’. She went on: ‘We are an integral member of the EU and it is simply not credible to argue that the other nations of the EU would not want to retain access to the vast array of resources and opportunities that Scotland brings to the EU table’.

The Deputy First Minister spoke these words in an emergency statement to the Scottish Parliament on the issue of how independence for Scotland would affect that nation’s relationship with the EU. The statement was a rapid reaction response to a letter from European Commission president José Manuel Barroso to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee. In that letter Barroso asserted that ‘if part of the territory of a Member State would cease to be part of that state because it were to become a new independent state, the [EU] Treaties would no longer apply to that territory. In other words, a new independent state would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country with respect to the EU’.

The issue of an independent Scotland’s status within the EU has rumbled on for some months now with pro- and anti-independence campaigners using it as grist to their respective mills. For the unionists the issue creates uncertainty, which feeds into their broader campaign narrative. For the SNP the idea that Scotland would continue, automatically and seamlessly, within the EU has been central to their public narrative since 1988. The present state of the debate on this topic leaves much to be desired from a public policy perspective.

There is no definitive legal answer to the issue. There is nothing within the EU treaties that explicitly addresses the issue of part of an existing Member State becoming a new state. There is no historical precedent. And there is no case law. What there is, if we look at the history of the EU, is a track record of pragmatically addressing a series of territorial quirks – none of which serve as a direct parallel for Scotland – in a way that avoided unnecessary drama, political tension, and upheaval. Make no mistake, should Scotland find itself outside of the EU for even a brief period it would create drama, tension, and upheaval for countless students, investors, corporations, and fishermen who possess various rights vis-a-vis the territory of Scotland.

The arguments that have been advanced, in public, to date are both overly simplistic. They essentially boil down to a state-centric perspective of the EU versus a citizen-centric perspective. The former view sees the EU as a club of states and argues that because Scotland would be a new state it would be no different to Iceland or Croatia at present. This is the argument articulated in Barroso’s letter and it seems to be the argument offered to the UK government by its own lawyers. It is an argument plucked straight from public international law and the rules of state continuity and secession. But the EU is a distinct legal order, a quasi-constitutional order and it is far from clear that public international law is the appropriate venue in which to shop for answers.

The latter view contends that there is no mechanism through which to deprive those in Scotland of their current rights as EU citizens and thus the presumption must be continuity of membership. This is the argument of, amongst others, Aidan O’Neill QC and it has been echoed by various Scottish government ministers. However, whether EU citizenship is a sufficient base on which to claim on-going membership of the club is contestable. EU citizenship supplements national citizenship of a EU member state and, although the European Court of Justice has sought to extend the reach and content of EU citizenship through the years, it remains secondary and supplementary.

Towards the end of 2012 the Scottish government seemed to move away from this citizen-centric argument and instead offered what they called a ‘common sense‘ perspective on the matter. Such a perspective accepted that there would be a need to negotiate the precise terms of Scotland’s membership of the EU but that these negotiations would take place during the period between a vote for independence (in the fall of 2014) and the date of independence (potentially as early as May 2016). Negotiations would, of course, be complex and numerous issues would be on the table. Such issues would include the various opt-outs currently possessed by the UK and whether an independent Scotland would inherit them, and the UK’s budget rebate and whether Scotland would receive a similar abatement. It would be very difficult for Scotland to retain all of these perks and opt-outs but they are a very separate issue from membership of the EU itself.

While there may be nothing definitive in the EU treaties to solve this puzzle, there is a spirit of good faith and cooperation that underpins the treaties. Such a spirit creates a reasonable expectation that, following any vote in favour of independence, the European Commission (and the other Member States) would enter into negotiations to manage Scotland’s transition to Member State status in a way that caused the least disruption to the union. What is more, the EU’s commitment to democracy and self-determination is hard to square with the notion of expelling part of its existing territory because it exercised a democratic right and expressed its political will for self-determination. The general spirit of the treaties and the fundamental values that the EU claims to stand for may be Scotland’s best friends in such a process.

Few things can be said on this issue with certainty but a combination of political motivations and legal considerations will shape the outcome. What is essential now is that serious thought be given to how the practicalities of Scottish independence might be managed within the EU framework. Questions such as whether the Commission could negotiate with a putative Scottish state before it became formally independent cannot and should not wait until the referendum. It is politically infeasible for those opposed to independence to be seen to be planning for its eventuality and so researchers and academics must step to the plate and do the diligent and quiet work required to start tackling these practical issues. Then, if independence does come, at least we’ll all be a little better prepared.

Daniel Kenealy is Lecturer in European Union Studies and Deputy Director of the Academy of Government at the University of Edinburgh.