Brexit - But what happens to Scotland?

FROM SUNDAY HERALD

It seems only yesterday that everyone was talking about a "Grexit" - the forecast, made by most of the UK press, that Greece was about to leave the European Union because of the onerous bailout terms imposed by the EU and IMF. Now, suddenly, we are talking about the "Brexit" - the possibility, indeed probability, of a British exit from Europe when the current Lisbon Treaty comes up for negotiation in 2015.

Last week, three prominent Tory grandees - the former Chancellor, Lord Lawson, the former Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo, and Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, called for British withdrawal from the European Union. The former Tory Scottish Secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind said they'd "hurled a hand-grenade into a small building". It certainly put a bomb under David Cameron's policy of promising to renegotiate the terms of British membership, and then putting the result to a referendum after the next general election. Tory backbenchers, emboldened by Lord Lawson and co. are demanding a firm commitment right away. Labour says it is opposed to a referendum now, but agrees on the need for reform, and is not ruling out its own referendum on independence from Europe.

Viewed from Scotland, where opposition to Europe is muted and where we have another referendum on our minds, this all seems more than a little surprising. Most Scots still want to stay in the EU, according to the latest Ipsos Mori poll, and only a third want out. But in England - especially the south - there has been a growing frustration with Europe that finally erupted two weeks ago in the English local elections, when UKIP - the party seeking withdrawal from the EU - won up to 25% of the vote. There is little doubt that many people in England feel that Europe is a "bureaucratic monstrosity" to use Lord Lawson's description, and that their democracy is being subverted by Brussels.

But what exactly do they mean by this? When you ask eurosceptic Tory MPs they tend to reply with relatively trivial examples - compulsory seat belts for children under 12, regulations on food standards, health and hygiene. Those infamous straight bananas. But most of these relate to the terms under which the UK is a member of the Single European Market, where standardisation is necessary to ensure a level playing field for all trading nations.

Similarly, the social protections of the EU, like the working time directive, are intended to make the single market work fairly and prevent some countries seeking advantage by forcing their workers to spend longer at work. The "social Europe" as it is called is hardly onerous, and Britain anyway has an opt out from the 48hr working week.

Eurosceptics also talk of the Human Rights Act and claim that the failure to deport suspected terrorists like Abu Qatada has something to do with the European Union. This is completely wrong. The Human Rights Act is based on the European Convention on Human Rights which was set up by Winston Churchill after the Second World War to prevent totalitarianism returning to Europe.

None of these, it seems to me, are reasons to go to war with Europe, and deny the benefits of the single market which has undoubtedly boosted prosperity. Trade within Europe has doubled since 1992, thanks to the abolition of tariffs and barriers to the free movement of goods and services in Europe.

Europen Union or United Kingdom. Scotland may have to choose.

   To howls of unionist derision, Alex Salmond yesterday outlined his thoughts on an independent constitution for Scotland. He holds these truths to be self evident: that Scots shall have a home as a constitutional right, that there shall be free education in perpetuity, and that there will be no nuclear weapons on Scottish soil. I don't argue with his priorities, though I can't help feeling slightly uneasy at a constitution that sounds suspiciously like election manifesto. What kind of home? Will all education be free under the constitution? Even part time and post graduate university degrees? Will my daughter's guitar lessons be refundable from the state?

There are some constitutional anomalies too. The First Minister says he is affirming the Scottish constitutional tradition of the Declaration of Arbroath, that he says was a declaration of popular sovereignty - which of course it was not. The Scottish nobles who put their seals to the letter to Pope John in 1320 weren't democrats and had no concept of the Rights of Man. But let's not quibble about that - it was a long time ago after all, and we're all democrats now. There is a more direct problem with monarchy.

The SNP's Constitution for a Free Scotland, published in 2002, says that "Executive powers are vested in the Head of State, Queen Elizabeth 11, who is expected and required to act on the advice of the Prime Minister and Ministers". A constitutional monarchy, right enough, but a monarchy nevertheless. Do we really want Elizabeth Windsor, her heirs and successors, reigning over us in perpetuity? Nor am I sure how you reconcile a pledge to reject nuclear weapons with being a member of a nuclear alliance, NATO, which hasn't ruled out the first use of them.

But least the First Minister is talking about the constitution and making positive proposals for how a written constitution might improve the governance of Scotland. The No campaign has been predictably dismissive of the whole idea - that it is Alex Salmond's ego getting in the way of political reality. "Scotland has a right to a first minister who is honest", was BT's response yesterday. The UK government has ruled out any pre-referendum talks on the transition to independence, on the grounds that they don't believe it's going to happen.

But they are missing a trick here. If they were to come up with some constitutional proposals themselves they could rebut the charge that they are only interested in negative scare-mongering. Right now, the UK government is supposed to be reforming the House of Lords, but seems to have no idea how to do it. The West Lothian Question remains an issue, and the Barnett Formula has to be reformed because the Scottish parliament is to get greater tax and borrowing powers in 2016. Better Together could run these elements together and make concrete proposals for a federal UK, with the House of Lords as a regionally-based Senate, an English Grand Committee for domestic legislation, fiscal autonomy for Scotland and a written constitution. The Coalition is supposed to be drafting a Bill of Rights as we speak, but can't decide what to put in it. There it is.

  This is a rare opportunity address not just the Scottish Question, but the London Question. Britain is becoming two nations: London and the rest of the country, and there is a pressing need for a constitution that devolves and decentralises power. But what do we get instead? A referendum on British membership of the European Union - an issue that is scandalously irrelevant to the real issues facing this country. It raises what might be called the West Strasbourg Question: what if Scotland is thrown out of Europe on the basis of English votes?

Independence in Europe. Jose he say "no".

It recalled the BBC Director General, John Entwhistle, being jeered by MPs over the Newsnight/Savile affair.   John Swinney, the Scottish finance secretary, was ridiculed by the House of Lords economic committee on Tuesday for trying to argue that an independent Scotland would be able to remain in the EU because it would still be part of the UK when the negotiations took place. The “last refuge of the scoundrel” sneered one Peer. “Doesn't know what he's talking about” said another

Their Lordships eyes rolled to the ceiling in mock amazement as a diffident Swinney tried to argue that the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, had not said what he clearly had said in a letter to the committee. Namely, that after independence Scotland would become “a third country with respect to the EU” and that the various treaties “would no longer apply on its territory” and that the new entity would have to apply for membership “like any other state”. The chairman, Lord McGregor, treated Swinney as if he were a rather dim sixth former at a minor public school.

It wasn't really John Swinney's fault – the constitution and Europe isn't his brief after all, it is Nicola Sturgeon's. And the patronising Peers, like Lord Forsyth and Lord Lipsey, are of course political appointees and hardly independent authorities. He had been left dangerously exposed by his own party, who've tried to ignore this issue for far to long expecting that it will go away. This won't do. You can't be the party of 'independence in Europe' when the top guy in Europe is suggesting that Scotland would be ejected from it.

Nicola Sturgeon has been dragged kicking and screaming to give a statement on EU membership to Holyrood on Thursday, just as Alex Salmond was dragged to the chamber to explain the non-existent legal advice in October. This is undignified.  Barroso has chosen to get involved in this issue for his own political motives. Bureaucrats, like cushions, ten to show the imprint of the last people who sat on them. Barroso is under pressure from other member states, like Spain, who have their own separatist movements, not to say anything that might encourage secession.

The Bastards Are Back. How the Tories are all eurosceptic now.

It was just like old times. Wednesday's Tory back-bench rebellion over Britain's contribution to the European budget took me back twenty years to Maastricht, John Major and the eurosceptic tormentors that the former Tory PM called “the b****rds”. One of them, Teresa Gorman, the Conservative MP for Billericay, even wrote a book entitled “Bastards” about her contribution to the great Maastricht war. But it seems the b****rds are back.

Last week, as Tory MPs inflicted a humiliating defeat over their own prime minister, there was that same sense of excitement in the airless corridors of the Palace of Westminster. Tory MPs with glistening foreheads rushing around collecting names for mischievous motions, intoxicated by rebellion. There's nothing like it. Backbench MPs live pretty dull lives: being told how to vote by the whips; keeping their thoughts to themselves in case they damage their careers; filing obediently through the lobbies. When a rebellion happens it is as if they wake up – they remember why they came to politics in the first place. To change things; to call spades spades;to make passionate declarations.

Mind you, to outsiders these declarations may seem to come from another planet expressed in an alien tongue. Tories fulminate about obscure issues like the “Lisbon passerelle” which sounds like an opening gambit in grandmaster chess, but is actually a clause in the EU treaties that allows the European Council of Ministers to decide when to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting. Tory MPs call it the “gangplank clause” because it means the other states could force Britain to walk.