The SNP now want a ‘semi-detached’ Scotland. Could it work?

The SNP appears to be on the verge of changing one of its core beliefs – full membership of the European Union. Senior party figures have revealed, in a piece in the Times today, that there is a desire in the higher echelons of the SNP to ditch this long-standing tenet of party policy.

Instead, they want the party to adopt a Norway-style model. This would see an independent Scotland outside the EU but inside the single market, after Brexit. Scotland could then join the EU at a later date, if it wished to do so but it would not immediately join the back of the queue for EU membership, as has always been assumed.

It would be a policy earthquake for the party to ditch something like EU membership that has been central to its message since the 1980s. But it would also be a canny approach. Most importantly, it would allow the SNP to attract Eurosceptic voters and counter some of the key arguments against independence which will be thrown against them.