Brussels dashes hopes new state could start life by staying in EU

NICOLA STURGEON’S blueprint for a separate Scotland faltered within hours of her referendum announcement yesterday after it was confirmed it would start life outside the EU and Nato.

The European Commission said the “Barroso doctrine” continued to apply, meaning a separate Scotland would have to make a fresh application to join under Article 49 of the Lisbon Treaty, a process that can take many years.

José Manuel Barroso, the former commission president, set out the legal view that if one part of an existing EU country became an independent state, it would have to apply for membership.

Jean Claude Juncker, his successor, has previously made clear there would be no more states admitted until 2020 — the year after the UK is expected to leave the EU. Separately, Nato said that a new independent state would also have to apply to join the alliance.

Although the SNP reversed its longstanding opposition to Nato in the runup to the 2014 referendum, any Scottish application may be damaged by the party’s opposition to allowing Britain’s nuclear deterrent to stay on the Clyde.

The interventions appeared to undermine further Ms Sturgeon’s rationale that the economic “chaos” unleashed by Brexit justified another referendum. Scotland’s exports to the rest of the UK are worth four times as much as those to the EU, and experts have warned of a hard economic border with England if one country is in the single market and the other outside.

But nationalists in Wales and Northern Ireland sought yesterday to capitalise on the situation.

Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru leader, claimed a vote on Scottish independence would “lead to the end of the UK as a state”, and said “in that situation Wales would need to decide its own future”. Sinn Fein demanded an border poll that could lead to the reunification of Ireland.

David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, said: “I don’t accept this is about Brexit at all. I think Nicola Sturgeon’s irresponsible actions come from her tunnel vision obsession with independence.”

Speaking at a briefing in Brussels, Margaritis Schinas, a European Commission spokesman, said: “The Barroso doctrine, would that apply? Yes that would apply, obviously.”

Ms Sturgeon is understood to be considering changing SNP policy so that Scotland would apply in the short term to join the European Free Trade Association, the members of which also have access to the single market.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretarygeneral, told Sky News that the alliance had no view on the question of independence but warned the rules were clear. He said: “If it happens then the UK will continue as a member of Nato but a new independent state has to apply for membership and then it is up to 28 allies whether we will have a new member.”