Time to take into account legal implications of dissolution of the Treaty of Union

DR Alexander S Waugh (Letters, September 11) is undoubtedly correct in stating that “the essential outcome of a majority Yes vote in the referendum will be the repeal of the provision in the constitutional settlement of 1706-1707 that ‘the two kingdoms of England and Scotland shall be united into one Kingdom, referred to thereafter as the United Kingdom’”. In his letter, Dr Waugh then goes on to discuss the effect of some of the less significant provisions being repealed, but ignores that most important one.

On the day Scotland becomes independent it will not be leaving or “breaking up” from the United Kingdom; it will be legally dissolving an international treaty between two independent nations. The Treaty of Union and every one of its provisions will become null and void. The effect of that dissolution is that the United Kingdom will cease to exist as a legal entity. Of course, England, Wales and Northern Ireland will remain together as a nation state, but they cannot continue to be the United Kingdom or the “rest of the United Kingdom” (rUK).

It follows that under international law they cannot automatically retain all the assets (and liabilities) of the former state, nor assume continued membership of international bodies and all the rights and status that go with these. Instead they would have to find a new collective name and be treated as a new national entity just like Scotland, either seeking continued membership of bodies such as the UN, the EU and Nato or have joining applications fast-tracked.

Given the vital importance of this matter, I am most surprised that no expert in international law, and no one in the official Yes campaign, has sought to challenge the unsupported and rather arrogant assumption that the slightly smaller United Kingdom will just carry on as before, just without Scotland in it. Iain AD Mann, 7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow. MUCH has been said on whether an independent Scotland would be allowed to join international bodies, such as the European Union, Nato, and so on. But Scotland has been in those organisations for decades, as has England, albeit as part of an existing member state. In the event of a Yes vote, that member state will be replaced by two successor states. One will be Scotland; the other will be the remaining parts of the current United Kingdom, which will in essence be England.

Scotland holds the only significant energy reserves, both fossil and renewable, in the EU, as well as substantial fish stocks. Thus the notion, propagated by opponents of independence, that the EU would expel Scotland but allow England to remain, is not only contrary to natural justice (where is that famous British sense of fair play?) but is also manifestly absurd.

It is merely another example of the increasingly hysterical scaremongering by a panic-stricken establishment. James A Peat, 5 Broom Drive, Inverness.