Now Salmond says we should stay out
ALEX Salmond yesterday admitted that an independent Scotland could be outside the EU, and hailed the ‘opportunities’ this could bring.
The former First Minister has become the first major SNP figure to back membership of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – the so-called Norway-model keeping Scotland inside the European single market but outside the EU.
His position, to be revealed at a Business for Scotland (BfS) dinner last night, represents a major break from SNP policy which advocates ‘independence in Europe’.
Mr Salmond’s support for EFTA was revealed in a statement issued by the pro-independence BfS, which did not make clear if Mr Salmond’s support for EFTA was long-term or simply a short-time solution, with Scotland later applying to join the EU.
The statement revealed Mr Salmond would argue that members of EFTA – Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland – are among the richest in the world, adding that Brexit would ‘make a second independence referendum inevitable, as more and more people come to realise the economic opportunity of independence within EFTA’.
The BfS statement added that Mr Salmond would argue ‘EFTA membership would give an independent Scotland a definitive European relationship’ that would be ‘more certain and stable’ than UK Government proposals. So far, the SNP leadership has refused to accept a move away from full EU membership. Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, BfS chief executive, said: ‘Alex Salmond’s speech marks a significant development in making the case for independence in a European context.
‘Any form of Brexit that takes Scotland out of the single market and customs union, that endangers EU research and farming grants support, and slows the flow of talented EU workers into Scotland’s economy will damage our economy so badly that independence – with access to the Single Market (through EFTA) – would become the business and economic opportunity of a lifetime.’