Editorial: To be or not to be in the EU, that is the question

The Kingdom of Shakespeare is currently facing intensive and passionate debates around the issue of independence. Independence of Scotland from the UK and independence of the UK from the EU. In the last six months, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron has given his approval to organise two important in/out referenda in the next 3 years on these two issues.

I am not brave enough to discuss the deep relationship between England and Scotland. However I found interesting and relevant the way the “European Union” is used in the arguments both in favour of and against the exit in the two referenda.

Several arguments used by David Cameron to exit the EU are the same ones used by the pro-independence Scottish National Party against remaining in the UK. Firstly, in his justification for holding a referendum to exit the EU David Cameron said that “This is Britain today, as it’s always been: Independent, yes – but open, too.” Secondly he also added on democratic legitimacy that “simply asking the British people to carry on accepting a European settlement over which they have had little choice is a path to ensuring that when the question is finally put – and at some stage it will have to be – it is much more likely that the British people will reject the EU”. Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy first minister of Scotland does not say differently about the UK: “David Cameron heads a government that Scotland didn’t vote for and that independence is the only way to ensure that Scotland always gets the government it votes for”.

Here is the irony of the in/out debate. The strongest “argument” used by David Cameron is that an independent Scotland would be forced to renegotiate its EU membership from scratch, the remainder of the UK being the only one which continues to exercise the same EU membership as before. The Scottish government has quickly returned the argument: Wouldn’t that be a problem anyway for the Scots if the UK votes to exit from the EU by 2017? Wouldn’t they be better off if they negotiate themselves their own membership once independent?
Have a nice week!
Pierre Baussand
Director