Guarantee of EU membership

SCOTLAND is, and always has been, a relatively poor country. The one action which rescued Scotland from its third-world status was the Act of Union with England in 1707 to form the United Kingdom, a union which has proved to be immensely profitable for both Scotland and England.

The disaster that is Brexit shows only too clearly the perils of setting up more boundaries between countries, as Britain has done with its former principal trading partner, Europe.

For Scotland to commit a similar act of folly with its principal trading partner, England, would be catastrophic. The so-called answer proposed by the SNP is for Scotland, as a separate country, to join (not to rejoin) the EU.

Apart from the fact that Scotland would have far less freedom as a member of the EU than it has as a devolved part of the UK, there is the serious question of whether Scotland would be accepted as a member of the EU.

Scotland has a much larger capital debt than is allowed under EU rules, and its membership would have to be approved by all of the existing members of the EU. This includes countries such as Spain, which already has its own independence problem with the province of Catalonia, which is unlikely to make it sympathetic to Scotland’s cause.

It would be madness to hold a referendum on Scottish independence until the Scottish Government has obtained an unqualified guarantee from the whole of the EU that Scotland, on becoming independent, would be accepted as a full member of the Union, and on what terms.

The alternative of independence outside the EU and outside all other trading blocks, with no currency and no international bank, is suicidal.

Finally, it must not be forgotten that the Westminster Government can be voted out of office at not more than five-year intervals, while the break-up of the UK would be permanent and irreversible.

James Cormie, Perth.