SNP's hopes of rejoining the EU grilled by Edwina Currie

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Former Conservative MP Edwina Currie rejected the idea that Scotland could easily re-join the European Union if the nation became independent. She argued on LBC’s Cross Questions that two EU countries would stand in the way of an independent Scotland’s membership. She clashed with SNP MP Angus MacNeil over Scotland’s place in the UK and its vote to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum when the UK as a whole voted to leave.

Ms Currie cast doubt on the idea that an independent Scotland could simply re-join the EU now that Britain has left the bloc.

She said: “You can’t assume that you would back into the EU just like that.

“That stands on a veto, and there are several other countries starting with Italy and Spain.”

Mr MacNeil hit back: “The Spanish have said not a problem.”

Ms Currie replied: “Oh it could be.”

Mr MacNeil argued that the UK’s constituent countries did not work together on issues and that Scotland had been taken out of the EU against its will.

He said: “When you look at austerity and the number of choices that they’ve made in Westminster, taxing bedrooms.

“And we don’t do thing together, you know Scotland voted to stay in the European Union.

“You know the old joke was a Scotsman, Englishman, Irishman went to a pub and they all left. Why? Because the Englishman decided to.

“We decided we wanted to stay in the European Union, let us stay in the European Union.

“And we were promised in 2014 we would get that if we stayed in the UK. “

“That was promised.”

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Although the UK voted by a majority of 52 percent to leave the EU in 2016, Scotland voted to remain by 62 percent.

For a new member state to be accepted into the EU, every current member state must vote to grant it membership.

It is speculated that Spain could veto an independent Scotland joining the EU to deter Catalonian nationalists, who also argue for an independent state inside the European Union.

Spain has not made clear whether it would do so, however, and the then-Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said in 2018 that the country would not block an independent Scotland so long as its secession was legally binding.

However, a senior Spanish diplomat in Scotland was fired by the Spanish government in 2019 for writing a letter stating that Spain would not veto Scottish membership of the EU.
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