The SNP needs to come clean about rejoining the EU

John Swinney and his colleagues continuously claim Scotland ‘rejoining’ the EU is possible, and that by voting SNP we can make it happen. In this general election the SNP manifesto commits to ‘an independent Scotland in the EU.’ This is a perfect example of the way a comforting lie becomes more popular than an unpleasant truth. Why deal with reality and its messy trade-offs when off-the-shelf utopia is available instead? 

An independent Scotland in the EU is a myth for the simple reason that the act of separating from the UK would create a new Scottish state structurally prohibited from entering the EU, certainly within any reasonable timeframe.

At the heart of the SNP’s pitch is a straight-forward contradiction. The party wants Scotland to secede from the UK and then accede to the EU, using the Article 49 provision for new entrants to the bloc.