UK Edition
Nicola Sturgeon praised 'extremely good' report savaging her plan to join European Free Trade Association
Nicola Sturgeon’s independence blueprint is in chaos, it has been claimed after it emerged she praised as “extremely good” a government report that savaged her latest plan to keep a separate Scotland in the single market.
The Telegraph can disclose that Ms Sturgeon heaped praise on a Scottish Government assessment published before the last independence referendum that concluded joining the European Free Trade Association (Efta) was “not attractive.”
In an email released under Freedom of Information laws, her office told senior SNP ministers and civil servants that the then Deputy First Minister (DFM) that she thought it was a “very good, extremely well-written paper.”
Among its conclusions was that a warning that countries that follow the Efta route to accessing the single market are known as “fax democracies” because “a substantial proportion of their domestic laws appear by fax from Brussels.”
It also warned this would make Scotland less attractive to foreign investors as “the Scottish Government would lose all influence over the laws and regulations” to which the companies would be bound.
The full extent of her enthusiasm for the report’s conclusions emerged as she was attacked for her lack of clarity over a separate Scotland’s currency. She said Scotland could use the pound “until we decided to do something else” but refused to say what.
The First Minister reiterated that a Scotland may seek Efta instead of EU membership immediately after independence. This would allow access to the single market via the European Economic Area (EEA) in the same manner as Norway.
She argued this “phased approach” would allow Scotland to stay in the single market before joining the EU at a later date but admitted this was “not necessarily desirable.”
But Jackson Carlaw, Scottish Conservative deputy leader Jackson Carlaw, said: Nicola Sturgeon's position on Europe is in complete chaos. "The fact is, EFTA membership would impose all the obligations of EU membership but no voice in decision making. The SNP's obsession with a second independence referendum is simply tying them in knots."
Murdo Fraser, the Scottish Tories’ Shadow Finance Minister, added: “To simply say a separate Scotland would blithely use the pound until something better came along is flimsy, insincere and further damages the SNP’s reputation on the economy.”
But Stephen Gethins, the SNP’s General Election candidate for North East Fife, said the attack was “ludicrous”. He said: “Clearly, the 2013 advice was written long before Brexit and made clear that full EU membership was the best option for Scotland – that is still our position, and it is only fair that Scotland has a choice on its future once the terms of leaving the EU are clear.
“But with the prospect of a hard Brexit looming, the immediate priority should be our continued place in the single market, and the protection it affords in terms of jobs and investment.”
The Telegraph disclosed last year how the November 2013 Scottish Government report made the case for a separate Scotland joining the EU and contained a section explaining why the alternatives, such as joining Efta, were “not attractive.”
The 105-page document, which included a foreword from Ms Sturgeon, warned that members are obliged to pay the EU if they want access to the single market and follow a “substantial amount” of European law over which they have no say.
This newspaper obtained correspondence between Ms Sturgeon, other SNP ministers and civil servants in the run-up to the report’s publication.
Her office sent an email marked “restricted” on July 11, 2013 to three of her ministerial colleagues, the Lord Advocate, the Scottish Government’s permanent secretary and the mandarins of two Scottish Government departments.
Among the “key general comments” made by Ms Sturgeon was that it was a “very good, extremely well-written paper.”
A second email dated October 30 that year from officials to ministers, including Alex Salmond, said the paper intended “to settle once and for all the accusation that we do not have a legally valid plan for securing an independent Scotland’s membership of the EU.”
Highlighting the section on Efta, it said: “The only real mention of other European organisations and non-EU states is in the section discussing (and dismissing) alternatives to EU membership.”
Ms Sturgeon said yesterday she accepted that it was "possible, not necessarily desirable" that for "a period" an independent Scotland would be in Efta.
She told BBC Radio Scotland: "Because we as the Scottish government, the SNP, are not in charge of the Brexit process right now we don't know exactly what that is going to be like, how that is going to unfold.
"So I was simply saying that there may be the prospect of a phased return for Scotland to the EU where we would be in Efta, the EEA, on an interim basis."