{"id":5867,"date":"2017-09-30T09:10:39","date_gmt":"2017-09-30T09:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=5867"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:32","slug":"take-look-across-sea-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2017\/09\/take-look-across-sea-ireland\/","title":{"rendered":"Take a look across the sea to Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The UK is careering towards a Brexit for which its zealots have never deigned to make a plausible economic case, preferring to insist on severing from Europe at any cost.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as the clock ticks down inexorably to departure from the European Union, the real lesson for Scots facing an uncertain future is that there\u2019s perhaps a case for breaking up the British union which isn\u2019t purely economic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debate is needed urgently, and yet the question of Scottish independence \u2013 inside or outside the EU – has virtually disappeared from the national radar over the past fifteen months. It\u2019s as though Scotland had been struck dumb first by the EU referendum result, and then by Theresa May\u2019s extraordinary conduct of UK politics ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ominous geopolitics of Brexit oblige these to be times, not for a mass crisis of confidence, but for dealing constructively with a moment of inevitable change. It\u2019s hard to see what future awaits Scotland in a UK outside the EU, other than as part of a deregulated, low-wage economy. If the status quo is no longer an option, then citizens north of the Border must insist on change that\u2019s in line with Scotland\u2019s cultural and social practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irish prism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A study of recent Irish history should be both informative and encouraging. The two countries are physically the same size (a united Ireland would be bigger), the populations are comparable and their gross national products are roughly the same in recent years as offshore oil has fallen in value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irish independence has transformed the country. And it isn\u2019t the common Celtic heritage linking Ireland and Scotland which should cause Scots to look carefully across the Irish sea, it\u2019s the enriching evolution of Ireland to modern and mature statehood, with the significant assistance from its clear-eyed European perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Irish journalist Fintan O\u2019Toole comments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

bluntly, Ireland has evolved a complex and fluid sense of what it means to have a national identity, while England has reverted to a simplistic and static one. This fault line is a crack into which the whole Brexit project may stumble.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

No mention of Scotland, ignored and taken for granted by May\u2019s Tories and misunderstood by Corbyn\u2019s Labour. This is not an oversight; merely the result of O\u2019Toole\u2019s view that Brexit is purely an English nationalist revolt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The self-absorption of English nationalism makes clear how urgent it is for Scotland to take a position on its own contemporary national identity, confident enough, like Ireland, of it to be able to deal with other nations in a realistic way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicola Sturgeon, on the day after the referendum, was right to focus on the Scotland\u2019s need to remain. The majority<\/a> with which Scotland affirmed EU membership was emphatic \u2013 much more so than the slim margin favouring withdrawal throughout the UK as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Colin Imrie commented here earlier, withdrawal negotiations with the EU and the UK continually underline that the UK as a whole, and Scotland within it, can only secure the benefits of continuing trade in goods and services with the single market if a commitment is maintained to key European values like freedom of movement, food safety and low carbon technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not just the economy, stupid<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ireland\u2019s EU membership has brought benefits going far beyond the economic. The EU stage has provided a wider perspective for its place in the world, a yardstick for a realistic sense of national self-worth, as well as a shop window for Irish goods and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country has risen to the challenge of leading the EU on several occasions through its rotating presidency and provided able personnel for key jobs. Occasionally, the international dimensions of the EU\u2019s institutions have proved a useful counter to domestic claustrophobia. In an early indication of rapprochement to come, the European Parliament in Strasbourg proved a place where John Hume and the Reverend Ian Paisley could sit down discreetly together and talk, away from the straitened confines of their native heath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The steadily growing number of Irish political parties represented in the EP chamber is a healthy measure of the country\u2019s increasing diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Parliament provides Gaelic interpretation during debates and one Gaelic saying is perhaps apposite to the European spirit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAr scath a cheile a mhaireann na daoine\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the shelter of each other, people survive<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reaching for the world<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But the economic returns alone are worth examining by those currently asking whether Scotland possesses the means to go it alone in Europe. On joining in 1973, Ireland trailed the other member states in economic terms with wealth levels at 60% of then EU average. Today, in an EU that\u2019s grown threefold, Ireland\u2019s wealth is well above the EU average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EU status has brought substantial inward investment, from companies who appreciate its membership of the single market. It\u2019s hard not to conclude that a Scottish economy remaining rooted in the EU would not expand likewise.
\nBefore joining the EU, Ireland was heavily dependent on the British market and exported a relatively narrow range of products. Forty years later, trade partnerships have diversified: the EU takes roughly 40% of all exports, the US 20%, and the rest of the world (20%). The UK\u2019s share has halved to 20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But while the UK has also benefited from EU membership, those benefits have clearly not impressed a majority of its population. It\u2019s hard not to conclude that perhaps the Irish have come to be more more appreciative because their media and political climate lack the persistent and implacable anti-EU faction found in British public life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A country now led by its ftrst gay Taoiseach has become more tolerant, and multi-cultural. It\u2019s certainly more comfortable than most of the British islands with the key concept of shared sovereignty. It faces no real popular resistance to workaday cooperation with other countries to the benefit of one\u2019s own. Significantly, Ireland does not have a Eurosceptic or anti-immigrant party. Immigration, perhaps because of the Irish diaspora, does not provoke such vigorous debate as elsewhere in Europe, although the country is now home to significant numbers of other EU  (and non-EU) nationals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Membership has been central to Ireland\u2019s economy and society over the last forty years.  Reaffirmation of this has just come from Irish Europe minister Helen McEntee in a speech<\/a> setting out Brexit priorities for Ireland. She stressed commitment to the EU, even while adjusting to the new reality of a nearest neighbour no longer at its side in Brussels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading Scottish politicians of all parties, Ruth Davidson, Kezia Dugdale  and Nicola Sturgeon, all believe continuing EU membership is also crucial for Scotland, but the British union allows no way of articulating the decisive Scottish referendum vote to stay in the EU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while England\u2019s Brexiteers prepare to sign a blank cheque to gain their version of independence at any price, what are the chances of Scotland gaining control over its own post-Brexit destiny ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Main image: John Quincey via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondary image: courtesy of Scottish Government<\/a> CC BY SA 2.0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘And while England\u2019s Brexiteers prepare to sign a blank cheque to gain their version of independence at any price, what are the chances of Scotland gaining control over its own post-Brexit destiny?’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":5872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[31,220],"class_list":["post-5867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","tag-eu-referendum","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18894,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions\/18894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}