Report warns of range of ‘border checks’ needed in an independent Scotland

An independent Scotland in the EU would require a “range of checks” at its Border with England, a new report warns today. Dr Kirsty Hughes, director of the Scottish Centre on European Relations, said the Border issue will be the “biggest change” in the independence debate from 2014.

“If an independent Scotland were in the EU, then Scotland’s Border with the rest of the UK would be an external border of the European Union,” she says in a paper entitled Brexit, Scotland and Europe, part of a wide report published today by the Centre on Constitutional Change at Edinburgh University.

Dr Hughes states: “It is clear there will indeed be a range of checks needed at the Scotlanduk Borders.”

Nicola Sturgeon is currently demanding the right to hold a second referendum on independence, with a view to Scotland rejoining the EU.

If the UK negotiates some form of “Canada-dry” or

“Canada minus” trade deal, Dr Hughes states the Angloscottish Border would be both a “regulatory and a customs border”. “There will be

the Scotland-england land Border that may require regulatory and customs checks,” the academic adds. “Then there would be a different sea and air border between Scotland and Northern Ireland – softer than the one with England and Wales perhaps – since Northern Ireland would be de facto in the EU’S customs union and in its single market for goods.”

Fresh constitutional clashes between the devolved administrations and Westminster could also be looming over the planned shared prosperity fund that will replace EU structural funds worth hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

Professor David Bell of Stirling University says – in a paper entitled Postbrexit Regional Funds and Fisheries Arrangements – that it remains unclear what level of control the devolved administrations will have over these new funds.