Why EU has modern approach to nationhood, unlike UK's 18th-century attitude

The past half-decade has also seen big changes geopolitically with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump back in the White House. At a time when the EU has taken on a greater security role, the UK finds itself more isolated than at any other time in the post-war period.

The failure of the Brexit experiment is reflected in public opinion with those who think it was right to leave sitting at just 30 per cent, dwarfed by the two-thirds of the population who now think it was wrong. The public are ahead of the politicians, with Labour astonishingly clinging on to a hard Tory Brexit that they never needed to own and know is failing.

Increased support for leaving UK

Voters in Scotland can feel some satisfaction in having voted for European membership twice, in both 1975 and again, with a bigger majority, in 2016. That satisfaction is of little use to our businesses, educational institutions and services that have been badly affected by the impact of reduced markets, less funding and fewer recruitment opportunities.

Leaving the EU has also had a significant impact on our politics with an increase overall in support for independence – although there’s been traffic in both directions. There is now a broad pattern, that didn’t exist previously, with higher levels of support for independence among EU re-joiners and lower levels among those who want to stay outside.

It has always been easier to make the case for Scotland in Europe – we’re used to pooling sovereignty with neighbours, with a long history of European political integration, and the migration debate has not acquired the toxicity that exists elsewhere in the UK and beyond.

So pro-European sentiment was already there, the European treaties simply provided an up-to-date model. The 1975 referendum was, therefore, more consequential.

Only viable path back to EU

The constitutional question is tied up with the European question, and has been since the 1970s. At UK level, the consensus is that we should not rejoin the EU despite the damage, therefore the only viable path to rejoining is with independence. That gives Scottish voters a choice between two different types of union and an opportunity for independence campaigners to win the constitutional argument, decisively.

The EU and the treaties that govern how it operates is one that 27 (independent) member states choose to sign up. They are not alone and other states are clamouring to join, the latest being our Icelandic cousins. Even the exceptions in Norway and Switzerland enjoy a far closer relationship than the UK.

Every country to join the EU has become wealthier, more secure and gained greater rights for its citizens. The only one that left has found the reverse to be true. No wonder the EU flag is a symbol of freedom and democracy at protests across our continent.

The EU gives smaller European states a place at the top table to engage with bigger neighbours as peers, and the larger states gain clout that European states no longer enjoy on their own. Internationally, it is impossible to ignore the EU.

Peace and security

That union has made war between its members unthinkable. EU states are committed to each other’s mutual defence, a crucial part of the alliance’s framework with most members seeing Nato and the EU as twin pillars of their security. This is particularly important for those bordering Russia.

Security is also strengthened by the single market. Energy security and a bigger market for food and drink ensure EU citizens have less to worry about than citizens almost anywhere else in the world. All of this and more opportunities for business, researchers and citizens who can live, work and love in any democratic part of our shared continent. That is except the UK – unless you happen to be one of the millions to have seized EU citizenship through long-lost relatives since Brexit.

EU membership strengthens rather than diminishes sovereignty. A diminishingly small number of right-wing Conservative and Reform MPs at Westminster seriously equate membership of the EU with a loss of independence.

If you told an Irish, Finnish, or Lithuanian citizen that they no longer lived in an independent country, your comments would not be taken seriously. Even if a state does decide that EU membership is not for them, there is a trigger mechanism in the treaties that allows them to leave at any time.

UK past its sell-by date

For most Europeans, including Scots, that is a good model for a union and managing relationships between nations. Compared to the UK union, our 18th-century model looks like an outdated relic. There are no rights for the constituent parts when deciding policy or even opting to leave, unlike in the EU.

The UK is now an exception in Europe that is past its sell-by date and it is the EU that provides a model for a 21st-century approach to nationhood and union. The European framework also provides for diversity. To Scotland’s east, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway all have different relationships with each other and the EU. That has strengthened their relationships, providing a model for how the constituent parts of these islands could engage in the future.

That has partly happened already and Ireland now has a better relationship with its larger western neighbour than at any time in its history. A relationship of equals where, since Brexit, Ireland has also enjoyed a better standard of living and more diplomatic clout.

So maybe there’s something to a union after all, it’s just the model that needs changed, updated and upgraded – in doing so we will be catching up with the rest of Europe.

Stephen Gethins is the MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry