A panel discussion and Q&A on the place of an independent Scotland in the world

okay well good evening everyone my name is ruth wisher and it's my pleasure to welcome you to this evening's event on behalf of yes eastern bartensia the theme tonight is an independent scotland in the world something for which many of us have long wished the organizers have put together a cracking panel and they'll all give a brief opening speech and after each contribution we'll maybe have a couple of questions or so and then we'll have a full question and answer at the end of the session so if you want to pose a question you can do so two ways you can do so at yes eastern bartonshire gmail.com that's yes eastern bartonshire all one word of course at gmail.com or you can do it at wwe www.facebook.com forward slash yes kick it control dot lindsay doc villages i've got a feeling you'll be going for eastern barnshare but there you go anyway let me introduce tonight's starry lineup helen hofer is the creative director of eu scots for independence a group of the new scots who paid us the ultimate compliment of settling here she's a citizens rights campaigner and a writer and political activist neil richard td represents a dublin constituency in the irish parliament and he's got extensive experience on european committees including the eu committee of the regions anthony salamoni is managing director of european merchants a scottish political analysis firm based in edinburgh anthony's an authority on scotland's european and external relations and the politics of scottish independence in europe and international affairs and alan bisset hardly needs an introduction to a scottish audience he's an actor of course a playwright an author and a long-time activist for the yes movement so welcome everybody what we're going to do folks is we're still waiting on anthony to join us but in the meantime we're going to start with new richard td and all of our speakers have got a five-minute slot and they've also got to face the wrath of me and deborah if they go over that time go for it now thank you very much ruth and thank you both uh for the very kind of invitation uh to join this evening and i wish it could be in the barton chair but will make do and as long as you all promise that i can come over someday very soon i really appreciate it um my ties to scotland i am very proud of i am a proud allister scott and i'm very much agree i'm on my mother's side and i have an ancestor who fought with wallace at the battle of falkirk indeed he was a captain of his army but i am here um as an irishman a member of the irish parliament not to provide a distinct opinion because that wouldn't be appropriate and you've got really brilliant speakers who are going to do that but i want to give an element of a case study of my own country's um experience of independence not a full independence but an independence for the vast majority of the country from the uk and independence that we will commemorate and mark in to in one year's time sometimes that's very important to me and i think what we have to remember is that ireland is not perfect it's far from perfect we face many challenges every day but certainly there are certain areas where i would argue that we do punch well above our weight particularly on the global stage and i want to let you know just a little bit not going into the depth of the history but something that we'll all bear in mind so obviously ireland gained independence from the uk in what we were faced straight after independence was a crushing economic war from 1932 to 1938 when massive sanctions were placed by the british government on irish beef exports bear in mind the vast majority of beef at the time went to great britain that followed a tumultuous period we were neutral during the second world war but we still faced um the devastation that many people did in terms of rationing supply chain blockages and of course our capital city dublin was bombed a number of times but things started to change as they changed from any place in the world in the 1950s and 60s when ireland the fledgling independent state started to take a slightly different approach to how it did business and how it approached the world and that led to ireland applying to join the eec in the 60s now we were flat out rejected because pompadou um sorry because de gaulle had rejected the british application still bearing ill will from the second world war when pompadou came to power things changed would we have gained accession to the ec without the uk also applying probably not in fact like a guarantee we didn't however now that the uk has sadly left the eu we're still staying very much strong we'll come up back to that later but when we joined the eec in 1973 55 of our exports went to the uk as of the last quarter of 2020 that was down to 11 percent and i think the tale of our 40 odd year membership of the eu is probably the most important thing it was a time of absolute modernization both socially and economically for a small country of just under five million people with a celtic history based off the edge of the continent of europe a few familiarities perhaps for some of the audience listening in when my mother when my late mother um got married in 1971 she was fired from her job in the bank because there was a thing called the marriage bar in 1973 when she had my considerably older big brother she was fired from a supposedly more progressive bank because she was now a mother that changed in 1976 with the removal of the marriage bar by the irish government directly because of european influence and that's the sort of ireland that we would have known pre-european membership today ireland is a member on its own right in the un security council for no no less than the fifth time possible now the scary thing is when ireland is the member of the u.n security council big things tend to happen in the world the last time we were there 911 took place however we are sitting at the moment being the country that has been delegated the responsibility of the u.n security council to play an entrangle um integral role in the voicing a new deal with iran between the world actors and indeed our foreign minister is currently in tehran we have many things and i said many challenges in our country but i think our global footprint the most important aspect has been our continuing european membership and any of you who have painfully been caught up in the brexit saga of the last five years will know that the eu never threw ireland under the bus the german car car manufacturers never came neither did the italian prosecco makers rather throughout the process the european union struck rigidly beside the irish government and indeed a couple of weeks ago when there was a wobble over article 16 of the northern irish protocol within four hours and two phone calls from the irish t-shirt and tonight it was resolved we're a small country but we very much see ourselves at the heart of europe and indeed an island at the center of the world this is merely a case study that some of our cousins across the water may like to pay some attention to carmilla malagus thanks very much for all that new we certainly will be paying attention to that but one of the statistics that you came up with here which resonated most with me was the fact that you've gone from 55 percent of your export to the uk to the most recent figure being 11 now we have a lot of um we get a lot of comment about the fact that we would about a piece of hard border with england if the if we were in the eu but not in the uk how did you manage to work that trade export reversal and like the scots the irish are very good at talking and they're very good at negotiating and going out and selling good product we have probably the second best whiskey in the world but we are very good beef we have very good idea we're very good digital we're very good pharmaceuticals we're the largest supplier to the world of viagra proportionately but the most important thing that we have and that we've seen the real realization of in the last number of weeks is our direct shipping links to the continent the continent represents 48 percent of our exports it's by far our biggest market so we've seen a 600 percent increase of ships going from lost lair in the very southeast of ireland to ports such as roscoff la harv um in in france but also santander bilbao in spain lisbon and portugal austin brooke and soon to be hopefully dicerberg the other thing that strikes me is that you went through a serious wobble as a lot of countries did and a lot of the people who had come back after the young people come back to ireland left again but you've rebuilt and you've rebuilt magnificently and as you say you've now got a huge international footprint we'd be very curious to know how you pulled that trick off well i suppose it it's the agility of being a small independent country and one thing that will be remote even though the world is facing an economic crisis of covid our exports are the only eu countries exports to have grown in 2020 indeed our economy continued to grow last year over three percent despite um the decline of covet and we look at the british economy that's declined by nine percent ours has grown by three percent it's being as i said it's investing in our strengths so we have a very young population we're a common law jurisdiction we're an english-speaking jurisdiction we're also a very welcoming country ireland just like scotland is very much a migrant people i immigrated myself for a couple years i'm a failed immigrant but our experience of immigration across the world be it canada america australia historically once upon a time it was the ulster scots the scots irish who went to the south in the us from the 1840s it was very much into the us into canada and in recent years to far more far from places but our experience wasn't always a great one we all may have seen signs of what 1950s or 1960s london was like for an irish immigrant no blacks no dogs no irish those were the signs put on boarding houses and when my mother and my uncle decided where they'd move from their very small border household in cavan my mother went to dublin got a job in a bank age 17 met my father was able to join sports clubs was able to join a trade union my uncle went to london eventually got a job in the civil service was black bold not only from his local labor club but also from his local conservative club going on to become a liberal county councillor for some time but i think the most important thing is we've learned from our experiences which makes us a very welcoming country okay media falca 100 000 welcomes microsoft are currently based in my constituency 72 different nationalities in a workforce of two and a half thousand and that's how we will continue to build our place at the heart of the eu we want to be the stepping stone for the rest of the world into the eu particularly as the only native english-speaking country remaining well except that we might we might possibly join you one one last quick question from you ireland was always renowned in the kind as you've just alluded to your mother's experience it was originally a socially very conservative country very much enthralled to the church it's now a socially advanced country a socially progressive one um how important were the citizens uh assemblies in affecting that change yeah i'm a huge supporter of the citizens assembly and my old lecturer from university david farrell has been a consultant to the scottish government in recent years about this and i suppose two of the most controversial issues that we faced in the last decade that i was delighted to be part of the campaigns for was being the first country to vote by referendum for marriage equality and secondly finally giving back irish women their reproductive rights the former was to be honest the easy one despite preconceptions it's very easy to sell love on the doorsteps the second one was difficult and it required a lot of really difficult conversations for some politicians for too long were prepared weren't prepared to simply make a decision i'm from a slightly younger generation we idolized roy keane grown up so we're probably a little bit brash so we i had no problem going from the outset back in 2014 before it was on the radar declaring that absolutely i thought our reproductive laws were barbaric and needed changing but the citizens assembly gave the citizenry to say it gave politicians the proverbial kick up the backside to follow the will of the people because far too long the politicians dictated the will to the people and you're right ireland socially was an extremely conservative country for far too long our 1937 constitution was run by the catholic archbishop of dublin but it was remarkable when when my grandparents who were from the minority protestant tradition who would have seen themselves as british but they stayed beside the under the line that became the border they would see northern ireland as the more progressive place the more dynamic economy with harland and wolf a good whiskey industry the linen industry but compare the republic to northern ireland now where northern ireland had to be brought kicking and screaming to provide for marriage equality they're still talks of a petition concern they still haven't implemented the changes given by westminster when it comes to reproductive rights and you have the leading party in northern ireland who still wants playgrounds chained up on a sunday okay thanks for all of that neil i don't see anything in the chat box from i don't see anything from any of the other uh viewers tonight and zoomers so we'll go straight on to our second speaker who's ellen hopper who as i say is one of the european scots for independence one of our new scots one of our very welcome new scots ellen take it away hiya everyone so i'm edin huffer i am indeed the creative director of eu citizens on independence scotland um i joined that org now four years ago um and i'd been a political kind of interested person when i was still living in germany i actually left germany in my kind of mid teenage years um which was pretty pretty early and initially moved to england did a couple of years of au pair jobs there um and found that the uk was not a particularly mobile place in terms of mobility to progress in your career and neil will be pleased to hear that i was very very happy to move to cork and start working for a company there that was interested in hiring eu citizens and was more interested in their language skills than in their other background um specifically when it comes to you know formal education i left school before i had officially finished the formal educational path and was kicked out from home so that wasn't a possibility to me i moved to ireland and stayed for a year to the day and still have very fond memories and can see the advantages of ireland as well as the disadvantages that come with a society that changes very very rapidly um and within the course of just a couple of years i think scotland has a lot of lessons to learn from ireland and is should be grateful to do so um but has the advantage of looking at some of the difficulties and failures that took place along the way for ireland um which not least of all have to do with uh integration being a sketchy issue when it's about a quick turnover of staff for example um that doesn't necessarily allow people to slot into the society scotland in itself has been a fantastic home for me for well well over a decade by now um i never thought that scotland would become my home as quickly as it did and it was it was a matter of arriving and within six weeks kind of feeling like i was growing roots which for me in the ten years before that hadn't really happened um i was interested in politics and in fact at the time i was going out with somebody who was a single dad and his oldest child and my partner at the time and i went to vote in the independence referendum which actually for both of them was the first time they had ever voted in scotland and it was for independence just for the record um that was the first time that somebody got interested um i was extremely disappointed at the outcome of that referendum i had honestly not seen it coming and i couldn't believe it i felt very differently about the 2016 brexit referendum i feel like i saw that one coming from miles off and months away um and it kind of made pretty clear very quickly that there was a couple of issues that i hadn't really thought about up until that occasion not least of all how well integrated eu citizens are within scotland at the very least and that because there hadn't been a real need for political representation there was nobody really representing eu citizens interests so that's um basically when i decided look if i if i can't see it i'm gonna have to be it and teamed up with the eu citizen organization that was already in the independent space and that was eu citizens for an independent scotland who had run a pretty significant and successful facebook page but hadn't really maneuvered outside of that facebook realm and that were respected for the content that they were posting at the thoughtful commentary that came with it but once i joined the organization it became pretty clear that we had a bigger responsibility beyond just posting nice things on facebook for people to keep up to date with eu issues and independence and that had a lot to do with advocating for eu citizens i also looked around in the independence movement and still felt like that there was a lack of diversity it's quite easy to say that somebody's welcome it's harder to make them welcome by making space to say whatever they have on their minds and that has changed quite a bit over the last couple of years and i'm quite proud to have been part of that i think we have quite a long way to go when it comes to representation from from everybody else that we're currently not seeing on stage essentially and we are still lacking people from ethnic minorities or at least minorities in this country and we're still kind of lacking more women and we're lacking people with different abilities and disabilities however society might term them and all of those are things that we can tackle in a way that is an open discussion i think prescriptive politics doesn't really benefit anybody now when it comes to scotland in europe and in the world i think a lot of people generally there's a bit of a problem of lip service versus the reality of things and the lip service can quite often be that we're all aware and the international community this and international community that um if i look at what has actually happened in terms of policy and concrete policy the only single person that has made concrete policies also in the room today and that's anthony salamoni who's written now two very very granular and detailed papers on what scotland needs to do um and it you know we we can we can praise anthony for that but we also have to look at why there is such a vacuum around this on the scottish political landscape and that is just as important as recognizing somebody's achievements um i'd really like to see quite a lot of the policies that you've suggested adopted by the scottish government and um i'm struck by the fact that in this administration we have seen more and more often that a lot is about a headline and very little was about the political factual follow-through that follows the headline and so that is what i've been busy with in the last couple of years and i hope to get going even more on that side so that's it from me thanks very much ellen two quick questions from me before we go to anthony he'll be able to talk to us about what you've you've just flagged up um i wonder uh the the problem it seems to me as a eu for eu citizens who've settled in scotland is while the scottish government keeps making welcoming noises to eu citizens about how much they're needed and how much we want you here um the home office still holds sway over the actual policy how difficult how threatened do eu citizens feel by the fact that they've got to go through so many hoops to get full-blown citizenship oh i can i can hold an entire evening's talk on all of these issues and still not be done i think the reality is that we like to difficult topics are currently approached by the independence movement as well as the scottish government as a sort of default answer that it's you know not a devolved issue so we can't do anything about this we have had the opportunity to influence policy that was in not devolved areas through areas that were devolved and i have actually two years ago prepared a list of suggestions of things that scotland could do to make migrants and not just eu citizens but migrants in general that are subjected to home office policies like the hostile environment more comfortable more welcome and more safe in scotland none of these have been taken up so far so i think from that perspective we can't just look at individual areas of devolved policy we have the ability to influence devolved policy by using and exploiting the very margins of what is and isn't evolved and make it more difficult for the british government to exploit people who are in scotland and for example for deportations we we are currently collaborating when the british government comes knocking in scotland on somebody's door and deports them from prestwick or somewhere else in scotland that is people scots new scots that are being deported on our soil with the support of scottish police forces that that kind of thing i'm sorry i have very little understanding for it when it comes to discrimination discrimination not just in terms of nationality but discrimination based on gender based on anything you know disability scotland doesn't really have a hang on the statistics of this and the fewest amount of discrimination takes place in a way that people feel is reportable to the police but if we don't understand the true extent of discrimination we have no idea that there is a problem all i can tell you there is a problem and we have the ability to collate these issues these are all things that scotland can do and i'm looking for action on that we'll let you amplify that again later on ellen but um anthony his work perhaps we'll let him speak for himself now anthony thank you ruth um and good evening everyone thank you deborah for the invitation uh yeah um uh i'm really pleased that we're having this event because i think that it's so crucial that we try to enhance uh the quality and degree of our debate on eu international issues thank you very much ellen by the way for your kind reference to my work my most recent report is called the global blueprint which sets out how i would imagine uh scotland could have its foreign policy institutions under independence it's a 40 000 word report so it's quite extensive um but i think you know as ellen was alluding to the reason why i want to write that kind of reports because i feel that that those kinds of features of our independence debate are extremely lacking you know what kind of role would scotland seek to play in the world and of course neil mentioned how ireland has you know conducted its eu and foreign policies over the past few decades and the kind of role which ireland seeks to play in the european union in the world there's a lot that scotland can learn from ireland for sure but also to learn from other european states similar to scotland in terms of size like denmark or like finland or even like norway being outside the european union but still in terms of how it conducts the rest of its foreign policy so thinking about scotland in the world it's such a huge topic you know it's really hard to to parse it but if i just pick up maybe three or four things that come to mind in terms of you know how how could scotland go go about having an independent foreign policy well one is i think because it's really important as i just mentioned to not try to be sort of a uk and miniature you know i i when i was talking to people from my report they're saying in terms of where embassies could be or where how you might approach foreign policy you know how will this compare to what the uk is doing or how will this compare to the uk diplomatic networks and that's not the basis that i'm comparing things on i'm looking at ireland i'm looking at finland i'm looking at denmark where do they have their embassies how do they structure their foreign policy because you know when you're a smaller country like scotland would be you know you have to do things differently you have to be strategic uh you have to you know decide um what what parts of the world what policy areas you want to engage on because you can't cover everything you know if you want to invest in multilateral organizations i think that's quite crucial and of course neil mentioned that with ireland and the united nations that makes sense for scotland but also even within the un system which is vast you have to decide which particular institutions which policy priorities you know do you can are crucial for you to focus on or areas where you want to be well known and where you feel that you have something to contribute to the world i think you know that's one of the core elements for me in this debate it's not just about what would scotland get from being in the european union what would scotland get from being in the united nations what was going to be contributing to those organizations it's both those aspects i think that's crucial especially in the eu you know it's not about you know just being in a single market because it's great to have a trading relationship with the rest of europe and that is extremely important it's important to recognize the sort of the tangible interest-based benefits of european integration but at the same time to talk about the values who's the european for european is about creating peace and prosperity on our continent and contributing to that uh and you know countries of the european progressively voluntarily integrating themselves to pursue uh you know common solutions to shared challenges and that scholar would actively want to be part of that and scholarly contribute to sustaining that it's kind of dialogue which i frankly don't think that we have much of and i'd like to see that a lot more um of course brexit is you know been the fundamental area of focus for us and that's very natural uh but to think more broadly about these kinds of questions you know of how you know what kind of members state with scotland seek to be you know if you look at countries like denmark for instance denmark has a lot of opt-outs considering how small it is and arguably has a difficult relationship with the eu in some respects you know i see it perfectly i can see it perfectly easily scotland falling into a denmark scenario i don't want to see that i want to see scotland actively choose to be part of eu policies and including having a really honest uh discussion on why it might make sense for scotland to join the euro and not just say we would be forced to join the europe but considering a country like ireland or countries like finland could be part of the euro project for over 20 years might make sense for scotland to you know that's a discussion which i think we should at least have rather than rule it out and have a negative framing to it and then of course there are you know the broader questions of relations with other partners out with the european union the united states i'm sure would be important for scotland in many ways as it is for ireland but in you know different respects and of course the uk you know that that will be a you know a major point for scotland particularly initially i think you know that the intensity of the bilateral relationship between scotland and the uk might diminish over time but in the formative stages of independence it would be quite crucial and obviously you want to have a mature constructive relationship uh and consider uh how you know how we relate on these islands uh because you know there'll be a triangulation between you know scottish ireland scotland scotland uk and then in ireland uk as well you know what happens to things like the british council those are sensitive issues uh which require really in a mature discussion across all three parties uh and i think scotland needs to be able to you know say that's going to give due difference to the existing members if you like of how they want to proceed on those things uh but so a lot so many issues to discuss i'll leave it there but i guess that just maybe one point to conclude you know i think we have to be realistic that scotland would be on the geographical periphery of the european as ireland is you know the question is you know do you want to be in the political periphery or do you want to be in the political center in political core uh i think scotland should choose to be in the political core can i just ask you quickly i don't want you to distill a 40 000 word report in in 30 seconds but if you were um saying to um an independent scotland's um uh foreign office or trade team and that they could concentrate on two or three specific niche areas for scotland as as nila's articulated about ireland as as we saw from leslie's film on estonia they went in for a nice market what would you say should be scotland's um if you like top three priorities in terms of um creating a niche market for itself do you mean just in terms of foreign policy generally i'm not not putting this well i know i mean in terms of what we do whether it's you know biotechnology or renewables or you know what industry we point ourselves at yeah i think you know i suppose the thing with that is you know if you're trying to particularly trying to develop profiles of excellence in the world of soft power profiles now scotland is lucky to have so many to choose from uh you know i'm sure there has to be something in there between the link of renewable energy and the you know natural environment and climate change this would be some nexus there that makes a lot of sense to me uh something to do with higher education of course as well and and the the you know i don't know what particular research elements i suppose there's always a challenge in government that you need to you may want to try to you know uh uh facilitate innovation but obviously government is not you know you don't want to pick winners or losers you know i think there's always a balance there but in that sort of you know research excellence frames of course scotland is a highly educated worker as other european countries do so i see something in that uh and then you know of course this sort of uh scotland's geography is an element of interest i'm not sure how that links through to to what you just asked ruth but it you know the sort of everyone is interested in the arctic now you know in a way that they weren't before scotland has a you know a a favorable geography to be a natural convener of parties on those kinds of issues and maybe there's some link there to the broader sort of you know elements of what's going on especially as the climate changes okay thank you we've got a lot of questions of which have come in now and i'm going to throw them around the panel in a minute but last but not least we've got um one of my favorite actors and playwrights and writers and all-around renaissance man alan bisson he's going to come on and give us his five minutes worth of wisdom now alan thank you ruth everybody can hear me yep lovely um this has been super interesting for me uh the whole subject uh scotland on the international stage there's so much discussion within the yes movement and within scotland generally about domestic issues especially just now for obvious reasons or uk wide issues and in a lot of ways i think a lot of scots a lot of people in britain have looked at brexit as a uk issue rather than seeing it for what it is which is a an international issue which is fundamentally about scotland's relationship with the rest of the world and britain's relationship that is the role in britain's relationship with scotland obviously um and one of the things i think is a feature of britishness is a certain insularity with concern with itself as a you know a preeminent nation among nations of the world which used to rule a fifth of the global or whatever it was britain's idea of itself is so large in front of itself that it obscures almost everything else but also britain's relationship with the anglophone world america canada australia these are the points of international connection that most people who grew up in the uk have with the international world and i think one of the features of the independence debate because i was forced to confront the idea of scotland outside of britain was i was forced to think probably for the first time of what scotland's relationship to the international world beyond the anglo-phone world could be what is scotland's relationship with europe what is scotland's relationship to all sorts of different geopolitical factors that they involve america or canada australia now really what it comes down to in a lot of ways that's discussion clearly no every way because there are people here who can talk very knowledgeably about the architecture of the eu and uh you know the the bureaucratic structure these elements of the discussion are vital we have to furnish yourself with actual knowledge about how things work how structures work but what are the things that scotland has actually been working out within itself for the last well for the last 300 years but specifically for the the referendum decade has been cultural and i think the cultural argument is still important i don't think it's the end of the argument i don't want scottish independence just for cultural reasons i think it would be better for most people in the nation but a lot of the discussion that scotland is continually having with itself is about culture and the fact that i'm sitting here tonight listening to three people talk with immense insight and understanding and knowledge about the scottish situation who weren't even born in scotland makes me feel quite inspired about scotland's potential future as an independent nation because i kind of get the perspective that you've got the three you have got on scotland by talking to other scots of course scott's talked to other scots all the time scott's former sort of common understanding between each other what might be scotland does or could be but it's only when you hear the opinions of people who are only born in your country who've maybe moved to your country or who want to form a positive international relationship with your country or who find your country interesting as an issue of study that you start to form what your country is in the round because you need to see your country as other peoples here just as everybody as a person needs to see themselves sometimes as other people see them the scotland having a conversation about itself on the international stage is the most healthy thing that we could have because so much of scotland's conversation about itself is quite stifling and i think that is uh partly as a result of the cultural forces of the union so i'm not going to really talk about the specifics of scotland's relationship with the eu um there's people here who know a lot more about that than me and i'm here to learn one in that respect but i think there's a cultural dynamic scotland possibly going through a very healthy convulsion and its relationship with britain that might make a more healthy outward looking nation at the end of it yep we've got lots of questions coming in now and um i'm just going to chuck some of them around um one of the first ones that came in was what the panel felt about um scotland initially applying to join efta in order to better access trade with europe and free movement within europe um and that's from andre i think maybe i'll throw that at neil and anthony new first uh why go for a half point when you can have a point um come all the way into the eu it's a much better place than after um norway doesn't have the say over how laws are created that dictate a lot of what their life does but yet they still pay in to the eu just to get access to the market i would very much see um that if scotland were to vote for independence that they'd be welcome in the eu it would be in the eu's interest to have scotland in it and a lot of the barriers that may have been put down by the eu at the last referendum by the likes of jose manuel barosa i can confirm are gone at this stage that's interesting anthony yeah i um really don't agree with the idea that scotland has sort of joined efta as a sort of interim thing you know i think if you want to join the european union you should apply to join the european union and you work with the eu to have an association agreement which would cover sort of that interim period you know between the point of independence and the point of accession to the eu uh of course that association agreement would have to be different to the normal one so you know i hope it'll be much closer and it will include you know a large degree of participation perhaps in the single market you know that is something that would be need to be negotiated that would be up to with the eu be willing to do but i think that you know that that is this when we talk about uh the process for scotland joining eu there's a lot of emphasis on how quickly it might go you know i think we need to be realistic because it would take several years i think we take about four to five years but the key point is not to try to you know circumvent the eu accession process the point is to try to get a really good association agreement and then that would glide the path for scotland to join the eu i have an opinion on this too um i agree with both of them um and i think it's important to look at this through the lens of what europe thinks of the uk and how it left the eu and what its role was within the eu would scotland like to join the eu or the associated countries of the eu with the same cherry picking attitude or is it full-on committed to the values of the european union okay thanks for that i want to um i want to just there's one other question that's specific to neil so i'm just going to throw it to him right now because um it's a question about the ferry link between ireland and le havre um how did these come about um when did they initiate and and can you see an alternative link for scotland to pursue exposed to to the continent that's from warring well there's multiple direct very links between ireland and the continent and their historics they've been going back to the time the wild geese and but they've really developed in the last few months so there's been new links um to la have but also to dunkirk and they have come from work by the irish government with our french counterparts france of course is now our closest neighbor in the eu we have a really close relationship but a lot of these direct very links they're driven by the market so we struggled as an irish government as the chair of the brexit committee to get irish exporters to look to direct shipping for so long because going through the land bridge holly head on to dover was quicker it was cheaper but as you'll remember at the just before christmas the kova restrictions put in by the french government in relation to lorry drivers forced the hand of the market because we saw the tailback of trucks being diverted a kent going to airfields abandoned airfields and people were going like well this could happen in a no deal brexit contents in a fortnight as well so that forced people and hence we saw that huge growth we actually saw ships that were previously going from belfast um to john raar and ken ryan moved over from dublin to go or to dublin and ross lair to go from dublin and rossler direct to the confident absolutely can work for any country but it requires a lot of effort not just from the government but from the commercial sectors and once the ferry lines can show that you can turn a profit on these things and they can they move over very quickly and the one thing we have now is it may still be taking longer but it's the exact same price now and it's pr massively more reliable to go direct from ireland to our biggest market in the continent you know i see it anthony not in there did you want to add anything that before i move on to another question anthony no well there's one that i think that alan might possibly i'm not going to read all of this because it's very very long but it's allegedly from robert de bruce um i think that's probably an impossible contributor but anyway he says and i'm assuming it's a he with that handle the problem with scotland in my opinion is we still have the religious bigots that still support the union scots who follow this line must be prepared to see the better benefits that would happen in an independent scotland breaking the mode created hundreds of years ago uh with the belief that we're better off in this union so um alan i know that you've got some thoughts on um both religious bigotry and on the union support that sometimes stems from it would you like to comment um okay uh well i have written about this in the past about um the links between scottishness and what i suppose you might call um a british slash rangers identity and this whole thing would probably um no really make quite the same amount of sense to ellen or anthony but mighty neil um because there are certain strands of scottish culture uh scotland's identity and you can't deny that these are part of scotland's identity they exist within scotland so they have to be looked at and discussed that identify not only with the union but with the actions of uh the brits and ireland and northern ireland and we are now only really starting to i think properly look at these because for a long time it's all been focused on football and rangers relationship to celtic uh and now because of the independence referendum and brexit and you know where brexit leaves northern ireland and a possible border pole between northern ireland and the republic of ireland you know support for welsh independence all these things are related phenomena now um i know i want scotland to be independent and i want scotland to have a good relationship with the rest of the nations on these islands and that includes england that includes ireland uh wales the whales will make their own decisions about where they're gonna go i want that to be the case and i think that will only ever be the case when britain disintegrates and the welsh and the anguish and the irish and the scots view each other as equals and because of the particular political and historical involved circumstances the british isles there are hundreds of years of it that is at the moment extremely difficult so i'm not going to i don't want to start you know using terms like religious bigotry people calling on a certain identities because they didn't have hope in their life that's what that's what it comes doesn't it the vast majority of working-class people right across the british isles and feel that there's no economic say and their own immediate circumstances they kind of control the forces that they are subject to so they cling on to these identities i think we we have to get better at respecting each other's identities because so much of the the dialogue around identity has become so fierce it's become so tribal and it's become so um people people now want to defeat a perceived enemy i think there is a healthy democracy and dialogue based future for all the nations of the british isles to reach independence that might have a strong benefit for everybody at the india well that's a very charitable view i think i don't know if ellen's got any view in this but i mean i've got a very vivid memory because i used to live a couple of blocks away i've got a very very vivid memory of george square the morning after the 19 the 2014 referendum and they were the square had been filled with rather disappointed um yes supporters with with soul ties and then there was what i can only describe as a fairly rabid invasion by people bearing the union flag coming in and causing a certain amount of mayhem now that seemed to me as an onlooker such a deep-seated kind of visceral reaction by the union supporters that i'm not sure how you get rid of that strand of tribalism as you put it do you ever thought in that island illinois i absolutely do um this discussion is absolutely visceral and tribal um but the answer to it is not a new one and not one that is out of sight and i'm a german a german who has gone through through her life being confronted with her country's history and very consciously has to deal with that still even in scotland um and i'm i'm glad for it because it's taught me a hell of a lot about people and about how to overcome xenophobia xenophobia seems to be currently thought about and limited in terms of nationality but that's not actually what the term stands for xenophobia is fear of otherness and otherness can be put onto all sorts of things blue eyes brown eyes stupid shoes great shoes whatever you want to tribalize um the mechanics of it essentially boiled down to xenophobia and when it comes to fighting xenophobia it used to be a fairly useful mechanism for more or less cavemen migrants that were swarming all over whatever the continent was shaped like at the time to distinguish between their group and other groups at some point the only way to overcome xenophobia is for people both to settle down in some ways into a society and for our personal identity and our personal worldview to include people beyond our own tribe so the definition of tribe needs to open and the condemnation of otherness cannot be about condemning other human beings it can be about condemning other people's opinion but you can never go oh they're just people because people are just people like you who believe something else quite strongly um and if you're going to fight xenophobia if you're going to fight the other ring of people you have to find the human common denominator and this is the hardest thing it's not an answer i particularly like i am not a person of great patience and nor of particular interpersonal skill but it seems fairly obvious that this is what has to be done if you want to convince somebody you can't just tell them they're wrong you can say what is the motivation behind this and why i can relate to that in a different way okay thanks for that i'm good i'm going to move this on now because there's questions coming in they can fast from quite different subjects um there's one specifically from stuart from neo who says um neil what are your thoughts on the euro currency is a huge issue in the move to independence in scotland and if joining the eu the euro is part of the deal i'm not entirely accurate but this has always been painted as a negative fear what's your view in that new yeah well under the copenhagen criteria you don't have to accept the euro and i remember ian blackford speaking very convincingly on sky news about this because that was a misnomer point out but you do have to aspire to a close relationship personally um joining the euro has been one of the best things that ireland has done and i have to bring back to the pre-73 days that we never truly got our independence until we joined the ec the chancellor of the exchequer still set our exchange rate when the pound devalued in the early 90s the punt as our pound is called devalued as well so there's a huge um i think for those of us who are really pro-european and i see myself equally as irish and european the euro has a huge benefit and i must say on a really practical point of view i know we don't really use cash anymore but i remember going on holidays to spain and france and not having to fiddle around with passages and try and work out i remember when i moved to brussels there's a very nice guy he didn't quite get it from northampton who sat beside me regularly at lunch and who worked for a certain other political party and every day he's they're like oh that's you know i'd say oh yeah i got my lunch it was 10 year old he goes oh that's about 7 pounds 50. i was like i don't care don't use sterling in ireland we've never we haven't used sterling in the 20s we've had the euro since 2002 and um certainly i'm sure you see a lot in tv where you you still get a lot of people there's a famous clip of an irish politician why don't you use the sterling and you're just like you know maybe it's a problem for scotland in a few years time but they're not too bad well that that brings us neatly on to currency i know that ellen wants to come in here but i want to come to anthony first because as you know there's an ongoing debate um anthony there ever has there has been ever since the growth commission which is now out of day anyway thanks to brexit but but there is an ongoing debate about a scottish currency what's your your take on that uh i i think if scotland were to decide to become independent it would make sense to establish a scottish currency sooner rather than later uh so i would not sign up to the the growth commission idea of waiting to you know meet the test that they set out you know i mean of course it needs to be in a managed way but i mentioned that it should be sooner than that ellen you want to win yeah i was actually going to mention the growth commission as well and i think that there's a different point to be said about the growth commission in a wee while but um it is technically just not possible to join the euro straight from being dependent on the uk pound so from that point of view there is just no really sensible option we don't want to hinge ourselves ireland came into the eu with the establishment of the euro so the same rules did not apply to ireland um but the rules that have since been established mean that new accession countries that are entering the eu have to have fiscal control over their currency and about the environment in which that currency operates so we can't just go oh you know we're going to be this now we establish an independent currency and then we have the ability to join the euro if scotland so chooses further down the line when it comes to the growth commission you as you rightly said it's completely outdated at this point another really pertinent point when it comes to international relations in scotland that was let down by the growth commission was the fact that we signed away our foreign aid budget to be spent by the uk government and that i think we've agreed that we've parked the growth commission so i was really trying to look at where we go looking forward rather than i'm about to mention that because the first minister in 2019 in her program for government announced a new white paper and that was 2019 a year and a half ago and there hasn't been an update to the white paper since so these are points that i think is important for the movement to continue pushing um because exactly those things are what matters in the context of international relations neil would you like to give us a uh because i know that you went through a quite different passage early on when you became independent but that was for obvious reasons that you know that totally different set of circumstances and a totally different journey to independence but in terms of scotland and the euro what would you advise yeah i i would advise that you get fiscal control first and then you move on to the euro um as not every eu member state is in the euro not every eu member state has euros 19 out of the remaining 27 but certainly for a small member state like ireland um that doesn't necessarily have the natural mineral wealth of somewhere like denmark or other countries i think it has given us great ability and bear in mind the president the eurogroup is irish the chief economist of the eurogroup of the eurozone is irish and the european commissioner for financial services is also irish it gives you great influence and ireland is very much a country that sees itself post-brexit um as being a player in financial services we're not going to compete with the city of london or something like that we're not paris or frankfurt but we do very much see a complementary role um for back office and middle offices and we've already taken in six and a half thousand financial services jobs direct from um as a result of brexit direct from great britain and we wouldn't have that the euro is a massive part of our arsenal um as a small trading country and i would recommend it bush and i really do i really think it's it's something that is worth aspiring to um and there shouldn't be an emotional attachment you know and i think there's a huge scope for growth for small countries as well alan do you have anything to say that before we move on to a different topic i do i've got a question for neil mainly um neil everything you've said this evening has been fascinating to me uh because you are telling that reality that scotland could have it's like here's what you could have won you know like if we'd voted yes in 2014 uh i think a lot of people in uh the independence movement are looking at ireland's fortunes over the years new obviously ireland has had a difficult journey and we're also looking at that you know and deciding what to do and what not to do politically but we're also looking at the prize at the end of it which is the position that you've got where you are backed by the eu welcomed in the international stage and are a modern progressive functioning healthy democracy i think the question i've got and this is born from ignorance about ireland's internal uh politics i suppose so i'm waiting for you to enlighten me here what what is the state of ireland in terms of social provision yeah and look this is ireland is a different economic model we we're not the size of the uk we are smaller and a lot of people will be very critical that our health service isn't as good in the republic as it is in northern ireland we do not have the nhs um but globally um when we actually detach ourselves and we look at all the factors ireland is consistently in the top five countries in the world and so on the happiness index for whatever weight you put in the happiness index we sadly slip from first to second last year but we'll get the norwegians next year um but i was this is you talk about ireland's very difficult journey and independence bear in mind irish politics is still generated by the parties that delivered independence just varying shades we don't necessarily have the strict left right divide we don't necessarily have much of a unionist rump in the republic even though i'm quite happy saying that my family 100 years ago would have been strong unionists who saw themselves as british and i'm very much part of the religious minority and scotland has the opportunity if they were to go choose it to enter a very different world we became independent just after the great war you know going into the great depression going into second world war the cold war the world is tough now but it's nothing compared to the 20th century and and certainly a lot of the like the ireland that became independent was a very different place democracy was young colonialism still existed and so we're going into whatever some people will say and all people always refer to the good old days life has never been better in my opinion you know we're living longer we're healthier people are more educated we actually have a move towards but haven't achieved an element of gender equality and tolerance and that's something very good and i suppose the great outlier and irish political concerns i'd probably be viewed as a conservative but looking at the british conservative party i couldn't see myself going in there at all um so i think that ability to be a small small country lends itself to progressive social development it took us a long time to get there but when change happens it happens rapidly and greatly bear in mind homosexuality was illegal 30 years ago in ireland divorce only passed by 50 000 votes two decades ago we still had the term illegitimate for children born out of wedlock that's all shifted and i maintained that if we hadn't joined the ec in 1970s that wouldn't have happened as quick as it did our european membership gave us the outreach to the world to a more secular vision and indeed to a greater access to north america that we wouldn't have if we had remained supposedly independent but shelved all from the rest of the world wholly reliant on our previous and whatever term you want to use the uk's previous relationship with ireland anthony do you want to add to that because that seems i mean the very fact i mean it's interesting hearing neil say that you can actually jettison a lot of baggage relatively quickly in the in the right context would you agree with that yes i think creating a scottish state would be a once in a century opportunity to to really think how scotland would want to constitute itself across all areas of society sure um i also think that you know neil was mentioning that obviously ireland became independent in a totally different world and of course the consequence of that is that the world is is highly codified in international relations international law and so on it's a question of you know joining the european union joining the united nations you know signing up to all the sorts of things that already exist uh and i think that that's something that needs to be appreciated more in our debate because a crucial part of that is scotland's relationship with the uk uh and that you know our referendum would need to be agreed with the uk in the scotland could never really become truly independent unless the uk was on board with the referendum worked constructively through negotiations then recognized scotland as a state and i think that that you know is very different from how things might have been in scotland was seeking to become independent in another era um but international relations is is very legalistic these days and i think we need to take that into account too are you seeing anthony or maybe i'm picking up wrongly are you saying that you agree that we have to wait for a section 30 um clause to be passed by the uk government before we can progress anthony oh he's shocked uh no i said all that um can you hear me now yeah yes okay yeah no i said there's no um i think it needs to be political agreement between scotland and the uk it doesn't really i mean i've written about this quite a lot it doesn't matter whether it's a section 30 order an act of parliament in edinburgh agreement or just sort of uh you know whatever but it needs to be some sort of immediate you're seeing that but you're saying that legally and politically westminster has to be on board i'm saying it's not a legal issue it's a political issue you know it did as i may have written about this a lot you know there are three main routes three main stages independence the referendum the negotiations and then recognizing scotland as an independent state across all of those stages you know the scottish government and the uk government have to work together if they don't independence won't happen in the sense of you know scotland being able to join the eu or during the united nations or being recognized by any other state in the world and i think that you know we need to be cognizant of that doesn't this is not a legal issue it doesn't matter whether the scottish parliament or the uk parliament has a power or authority and i think we can all agree at least hope will agree on the doctrine of popular sovereignty in scotland i mean if england wants to believe in parliamentary sovereignty that's fine you know it's not a question of whether a referendum is legal it's a question of does anything happen after it you know uh and that i think we recognize it's a political issue needs a political solution it's not about you know who has a legal authority under one okay we've got a quite different question coming out does anybody else want to throw their 10 cents worth in on that before we move on yeah i couldn't agree more the pressure campaign that is needed to make it more difficult for the uk government to say no than to say yes to us is what the pivotal issue here is and that's ultimately not one to be won in court though whatever route we go down i i still doubt the validity of going down the route and then leaving it to the uk government to fight that route in court that doesn't seem very smart in any case currently boris johnson and whoever else is the prime minister um essentially gains votes in their in their voter base from being tough on the scots and as long as that is the case they have no interest in changing the answer to whatever scotland does in terms of independence so it's about changing the pressure points alan okay uh what are the pressure points that we change i mean this is where i find myself in difficulty because what you're saying anthony is that without the consent of the uk government scotland will not be independent but the uk government has got absolutely no motivation to facilitate scottish independence so where does that leave us you know i still feel like an appeal to the united nations to recognize the independence of small nations of self-determination there is a precision precedent set by the 2014 referendum whereby the uk government recognized the mandate of the scottish government to hold their independence referendum now it seems as though the root that the uk government is going to go down is simply one of the denying democracy now neo will probably be able to talk quite extensively about the history of the uk government denying democracy of of one of its immediate concerns now i'd i'd never i think that the the fundamental mistake that scotland could ever make or our proponents of scottish independence could ever make is to resort to violence right that that that for me is a fundamental because all of us have observed what has happened to uh the island of ireland over the last 100 years and how long it took to work that through the scars still remain um but that really does place us in a very difficult position because how do we advance our democratic rights if we cannot be recognized as independent in the world stage without the uk government's consent that this is one this is the fundamental discussion about scottish independence right now yes it absolutely is but unfortunately we've got stacks of other questions and other subjects that and we could actually spend all night but talking about this because those of us who are um who are involved in this non-stop are and talk about it non-stop and would probably like to but we've got lots of questions and lots of different subjects and there's one um i'd like to take now from kenneth who says he would be really interested in hearing the panel's opinion on the position an independent scotland should take with reference to defense should they join nato or position themselves as neutral like ireland and as i say that's from kenneth anthony yeah i mean uh i this this is clearly a a contested issue isn't it you know we know that um but i think uh the short sort of version is i think that scotland should join nato uh and i think that you sort of work your way out uh on you know three different levels one is that you know what would be in the best interest of scotland security and defense requirements i believe that's from joining nato secondly is when you think about scotland's allies in countries in the european union countries like the baltics and poland uh how can how will scotland be contributing to supporting them i think that's also through nato and then another sort of a third level is you know beside once you satisfy those two thoughts uh what makes the most sense in terms of scotland having uh good relationships with countries that are important to it and that includes countries in the european union and the united states and again that includes nato i think that neutrality you know makes sense for certain countries and certainly if it makes sense for ireland and of course that's good but i think for scotland has never been a neutral country it's strange for it to try to become one i think neutrality at least for scotland would be outmoded and an abdication of the important role which scotland could play and i think that there is an inherent contrast here if you look at countries like norway or for instance you know norway is known worldwide as a peace builder and mediator but when it comes to its own defense and security it's an active member of nato uh and i think that that is a perfectly sensible role that scotland could fulfill as well neil what do you what's your take on that as a symbol which went a different route yeah and again this comes down to the context of when ireland became independent ireland had to sit at the second world war we weren't in a financial or geographic position uh to take aside and obviously i think there was only one member of the irish parliament at the time who decried the fact that we didn't take the allied side and then there was a couple of subversives involved in the ira who tried to recruit nazi support for irish things irish independence movements and taking back the north but i think the concept of neutrality has changed greatly and it's changing greatly for ireland and one of the things that ireland's most proud of and is probably why we got re-elected to the u.n security council is an unbreaking unbroken record of over over 60 years of peacekeeping and sadly we've lost 82 soldiers in the course but that's keeping the peace literally at the moment in the golan heights where you have the israel palestine situation on one side and the war in syria on the other they're genuinely exposed to some of the most dangerous conflicts in the world it's people in chat seven hour soldiers killed in the congo i hope some of you have got the chance to see the siege of jedoville a brilliant film that was on netflix recently um but within the eu the idea of neutrality has changed so much even in the 20 years i've been politically active it's no longer about militarization it's no longer about troops on the ground and one of the things that we face and we have a lot of referendum on european issues we're constitutionally obliged to and it's the constant refrain again of certain eurosceptic parties even though they're they're euro skeptic light your parties compared to some of the continents and in england is that what we don't know to an eu army and there's this and they play on the sense of fear that young irish men and women are going to be conscripted into a european army and sent to fight in iraq well that's absolute nonsense when we talk about closer cooperation when it comes to defense and security it's intercepting um terrorists who are blowing up the bakulan or going on stabbing raids and are using ireland as financial cover you know i sit five kilometers now from one of uh al qaeda's main money men in western europe who is a known person to the irish police we've maintained our neutrality with great difficulty it is becoming more and more irrelevant to be honest and it's the same for the other neutral countries in the eu who we do a lot of work with like austria finland and sweden we want to cooperate it's in our interest to cooperate um with european partners to protect ourselves against cyber threats because ultimately if the russian navy decided to invade ireland tomorrow we would rely on the royal navy to intercept them we're not we have you know observer status as nato's any western european countries entitled to and realistically it's a bit of a fallacy we're never neutral if a british pilot crashed in ireland during the second world war they were just handed over um to the border to northern ireland if a german pilot crashed they were interned irish generals gave all the weather reports to the us the allied forces ahead of the d-day landings during the cold war we were obviously closer to the us than we were in moscow many irish people were arrested for going over to internationals in moscow we still have one irish person who's facing extradition to the us because he was involved with the north koreans in currency um scandals so i think neutrality as we note is a bit of a myth you know we're not all switzerland who are armed to the teeth and full of gold and so i think we have to be relevant that international cooperation does include security and defense but that doesn't mean sending soldiers or tanks abroad and it's actually a big question in ireland because we've had massive solidarity from our european partners over the last couple years but one thing that's always lacking is the fact that the eu budget is increasing in terms of defense and security for very good reasons you can ask anyone who lives in nice or berlin why the those security spendings are increasing and we look at the russian different disinformation french elections german elections but yet ireland's contribution to that even though we're now net contributors to the european budget is so small and to be honest we're rightly starting to feel a little bit of a laggard when it comes to defense just as much as we come under pressure when it comes to things like climate change and possibly even taxation okay you seem to be talking about a kind of neutrality light is does anybody else want to comment on that before we move on to another topic okay well um we're back in europe now um from kevin he he said that the passion towards the eu in his opinion is immense and the pain felt by no voters in 2014 has now been felt by remaining voters who who voted no do you think he says on the independent side we're making a powerful enough point that we will hopefully get back into europe in other words there's been a suggestion as we know from the polling organizations that um not only that um some no voters might move to yes because of of the brexit vote but also some may go in the other direction any thoughts in that aaron i i do i mean we've spent the last the time since the brexit referendum scotland has mainly focused on avoiding the brexit that it came down the pipe um but has missed to put some meat on those bones of declarations that meat has been delivered by people like anthony and it needs to be put into policy to be believable everybody can say a thing that sounds nice and entices what appears to be the majority of the voters in in a certain place of the world but it needs to become actual policy and you need to act like it and fake it until you make it doesn't need to be a faking thing you can actually start doing the stuff and go to the very line of what you are able to do and in some ways scotland is attempting to do that but it's doing that in a very light touch way in terms of aligning itself with eu policy and with some of the standards i think in terms of data collection there's a big question mark as well and and on many many other areas too i think it's just about implementing policies that align us with the rest of europe at this point and not just saying that we're really friendly about it or we're flying a flag well anthony let me bring you in in this and because there are a whole lot of there's a whole lot of packaging in there not least the fact that um the um in that you scotland isn't always in a position to to um to impose european standards on in certain areas and there's another question which is coming just now about what has been known colloquially as the power grab the the uk's single market internal market which means that money which um should have perhaps gone to the devolved um administrations has gone to london and has now been rebranded and spent in scotland by the uk government i mean these are all in a sense part of the same argument aren't they um i think that they are for us internally um they're not so much in terms of scotland's engagement with the european union in terms of you know scotland's relationship with eu member states with the eu institutions i think when we come to to those kinds of questions that that's part of the thing which maybe alan was touching earlier about about how we are engaging with the rest of europe rather than what we're talking about ourselves i mean obviously the devolution questions are extremely important you know i think that you know i really think they should we for the kinds of changes that have happened we would have needed to have had a referendum in my view because i think it quite changes from what people voted for in 1997 but anyway in terms of engaging with the eu um you know they are not really that interested in in the developed debates you know it's a question of um how so how do you maintain the links i've written about this a lot you know i think you need to focus on how can scotland build practical relationships with eu countries on areas of mutual interest these again bilateral relations are about things that are interesting to the other party not just talking about i think the scottish government should not talk about independence to any eu member state or to any eu institution discussion which don't talk about independence at all and it's external eu and external engagement should focus on things that are you know areas where it can really build deep relationships on things that matter and then scotland should consider how it will make you know try to make strategic contributions to the debates on the future of europe obviously as a part of a third country and there's nothing wrong with scotland saying you know on the conference on the future of europe we will not necessarily be part of that but there are things that we might want to contribute uh and i think those are spaces where you know that that needs to be the focus of the of you know scotland's engagement with in the eu from the outside well actually that's a good moment to bring in phil who's saying pre-referendum would it make sense for the scottish government to be engaging in informal talks with representatives of other nations especially within the eu and with the us regarding recognition of scotland as an independent nation following a yes vote in a referendum held without agreement from westminster but um do you want to take the first bit of of that argument alan that would it make sense for us to be establishing if you like our pre-independence credentials with with proposed future partners yes yes it would i think the only problem the scottish government has got is that the uk foreign office have uh declared that scottish engagement with international bodies and officials has to go through them this is one of the moves i've made behind the scenes and scotland isn't going to be given any kind of budget or resources to try and make its case in the international stage whereas if it could have done through uk diplomatic channels before um so the scottish government now being an internationally recognized state government will only have so much capacity to be able to make its case in the world stage given the chance i think it should do that i think those conversations should be hard i think scottish potential future scottish diplomats for independent scotland should know in advance that scotland might be welcomed as a an international country but i'm also realistic about scotland's resources at the moment and how able is to make that case on the international stage and it seems to have an answer that i would love to hear i would just if i could just come in because i mean you know i think we've agreed on a lot throughout this panel so i suppose it's useful to have a moment of saying that i fundamentally disagree with that you know as as an expert on eu international relations you know if scotland you know if scotland were to become independent you know all the stuff about state recognition is really important but that would follow afterwards what needs to be happening now in my view is building you know building relationships but you have to do that on areas that scotland can talk about you know if you go in the scottish government say we'd like to you know behind the scenes talk about you know how you can recognize this will become independent people will clam up and connections will stop and meetings will not happen and nothing will happen and the engagement will fall off a cliff you know but if you come in and say we're here to talk about we're not here to talk by independence we you know that we're having our independence debate and you know whatever but we're here to talk about climate change we're here to talk about renewable energy we're here to talk about whatever that is how you build the relationships like that's how you get people to talk as soon as you introduce independence shuts off that that that is um real interesting and i'm sure that's true i mean i i've no doubt you know more about these things than me but the difficulty that we have is that the scottish people will want to hear assurances from international bodies or figures that scotland would be accepted as part of the eu otherwise scotland can't advance that case we're never going to get that so i guess we're going to have to come with better arguments i mean okay everybody wanting to know so ellen's been trying to get in for a while and and i think we'd also like to hear afterwards from neil as to as to what kind of reception he thinks we might get on whatever basis in europe ellen first right so i think both of you are making valid points and i think i'm gonna take it on from anthony's argument and say scotland has something that the world is currently desperately looking for we have nine years left to turn around this global crisis you know around climate emergency and the the warnings need to be heated scotland has enormous in renewable energy potential and there actually is in scotland for commonwealth a very detailed and costed plan on the table how to go about a green new deal for scotland the need in to become independent is implicit in how to finance the gene green new deal but the resources and the technology and the knowledge in order to make such green new deals happen is available in scotland and this is deeply interesting to people in europe and further abroad they're already looking at scotland's green resources and are buying them up because the scottish government is putting them up for sale right that's not how i would go about it but this is how you start getting people onto the table if in the course of that conversation you then come to constitutional issues that's a different way of going about it other than going here i'd like to speak to your ambassador at 4 pm about independence in scotland and whether you'll say yes if we call whatever route we choose it's about recognizing what scotland has in resources and that includes physical resources but also intellectual resources and plans and ideas for collaboration so that's the one half yeah that no other country could be more interested in scotland and what scotland is doing other than when it looks at what scotland is doing with the citizens of those countries i mean if you're going to want to sorry ruth but if you want the empathy of eu citizens on the continent maybe start prioritizing eu citizens within scotland let's just ask somebody who actually deals with the eu all the time and was actually on the committee for the region's new i mean there's two different schools of thought here as you can tell whether which door you knock on and when you're not which request you put in so give us some advice please yeah well i suppose i i wasn't going to paint a picture of what scotland's doing at the moment and i think possibly it's not um fully understood but the scottish government has a wonderful emerging diplomatic network as is alan's right it's in the gift of the foreign and commonwealth office but the scottish government has a good office here in dublin not only is the scottish government's head of office scott so is the british hot british ambassador which is a convenient coincidence but they also have offices like that in france in germany in brussels we've got scotland house and of course in canada and this development and stephen geffen's the former mp is about to produce a book on this and i know anthony i spoke to you um quite some time ago about this issue and you're in dublin with joan and then i think this is where the key issue for scotland is don't run in and say we want to talk about our constitutional status let's work on the bilateral relationships that are already there there's a big irish diaspora no yeah i know i know and because there's no point asking if the eu officially or the irish government is officially not going to give you an answer um and this where it comes down to the internal dynamics of scottish and british politics sort that out and then it'll be sorted out on the global stage as i've always said a hundred times scotland are gonna vote uh to be independent they'll be within the eu as quick as they want to be and the same with the un but crucially what scotland can and should be doing at the moment is building up its bilateral diplomatic imprint within british embassies it is very distinct you literally turn a corridor in the british embassy in dublin and you know you're in the scottish government section that the furnishings are different there isn't a union jack in sight it's saltire's everywhere the receptions are held deliberately off-site i was at a wonderful virtual burn supper uh only a few weeks ago and i know this sounds a bit toy but this is how diplomacy works and this is how the eu reacts very well to and um ellen's right i want to know that a couple of hundred thousand irish citizens and i know that's how many there is because they keep applying for irish passports and living in scotland are being looked after and i have no doubt they are but crucially the tens of thousands of scottish citizens living in ireland are being looked after too but i think scotland has a very many success stories to sell ireland has distinct interests in working in scotland when it comes to higher education and economic interest financial services exporting our dairy goods all our butter so you continue to make shortbread but crucially and this is one thing that i'm really annoyed a lot of you would have seen the announcement about the turing scheme today um the diet version of erasmus um irish language students only have one place where they can go and learn uh as part of erasmus or only had one place and that was to go to scotland but that valve has now gone and i have great friends who are able to study in saint andrews and university of aberdeen glasgow edinburgh all these places and it's gone and it's now working to see what was the alternative how can the scottish government independently get scotland to take a part of erasmus the welsh government are interested in as well we're more than happy to go for the course of northern irish institutions doing it but it's those sorts of bilateral key issues that's where the focus should be resolve those and then when the big question gets asked and the scottish people make their decision everything else is very straightforward we're not in 2014 the uk has left the eu and that is the crucial difference unfortunately they did try to stay in erasmus and were and were given as we see in glasgow and dizzy by the uk government there's an interesting question here um from ann who's asking what would happen if england wanted to leave the union and this is not as daft a question as it sounds because um i was talking to somebody who's just written a book about this and they were saying that while england had not been very interested in devolved regional government it was very interested in an english parliament and very interested in having um an english and an increased english identity so it's actually possibly a runner um for all kinds of reasons um you're naughty anthony if someone else wants to answer i'm very happy but no i just uh i i don't i mean there's always the challenge of how to deal with the fact that england is so big in terms of you know the uk by 80-85 population so you know uh i i don't have an answer on whether it should be in english parliament or whether there should be regional parliaments obviously they tried the regional assemblies and then they were rejected and so on so it's complex but the argument against um federalism was always because it would be asymmetric for the very reasons you just articulated because england's so big however um if england wants to have an english parliament in scotland once the scottish parliament that would seem to be quite a neat solution um i actually sorry i wrote an article with a series of articles together with the common green from commonweal about this it's called this pressure series and we went through the various instances of non-violent campaigning um at home within the uk top context and the international context and one of those points was for the you know for the uk white context very clearly is about solidarity and how it can be used we want to leave the uk but that doesn't mean we we are going to leave with the door slamming and if we want to do it in a in a way that makes sense then solidarity can be expressed through the progress that has been made for the devolved governments in the respective places and not least ireland and northern ireland who british have gotten their parliament just about back very recently but also wales and scotland's achievements the appetite for a devolved government i think is there in england but england currently is extremely challenged to find a bunch of left leaning politicians and activists to pull into the same direction together and they have been for quite some time so that sort of solidarity might be very well placed because it takes the focus off how bad scotland and wales are for wanting to leave the union and puts pressure on the lack of democracy where it is you know the biggest within the uk the only part of the uk that doesn't have a devolved government is england and they have a real lack of local democracy in a way that we can't even imagine anymore alan you've very deliberately left yourself unmuted so does that mean you want something to say you want to say something uh i do um to respond to news point and i absolutely understand where he's coming from in terms of the international community's perspective and the eu's and ireland's which is that everything is waiting for you should you retal resolve these internal differences with the uk i think the problem that we've got is that a lot of people in scotland were hoping for international support to put pressure on the uk government to recognize our independence it seems for everything i've heard tonight we should not expect that which means we've got a very difficult journey and i appreciate that support that should you become independent the international community will accept you but what i'm not hearing is any help but alan it's very very delicate balance you know what's the difference between offering help and support and encouragement and having a direct involvement as what happens if we were to turn around and say what happens if we were to turn around and say the opposite say well we'd much rather scotland stay within the uk because it makes it easier for us but i think one issue and if you don't mind ruth and i know you're the compare but ellen has touched it alan is touching it and anthony's touching it and it's one of the most difficult issues that an early independent ireland face and once again ireland faces now is the biggest relationship for scotland in the global world i very much have no doubt that an independent scotland will be in the eu and accepted at the un arctic council nato if it wants to but it's then defining its relationship with what remains of the uk and that has been the perennial challenge for ireland throughout our independence and bear in mind before we joined the eec an irish t-shirt trying to get a minute meeting with the british prime minister was extremely rare we had a much better hearing in france or in germa or in the uk or sorry in the us and but common membership of the eec made us equal it might have been on a number scale but i tell you the british government found out in the last few years what equality looks like and i think that is the one thing it's to resolve what relationship do you want now i want a good relationship between ireland and the uk it's in both of our interests as eight hundred thousand dollar citizens living in england and including my auntie my uncle and most of my cousins and and i want them to prosper mightily and lots of my friends move there and there's that transfer of people in power and capital and everything else british government isn't making that very easy at the moment that's unfortunately nothing i can do with that but scotland when they talk about scotland's place in the world scotland's place in europe i can't recommend enough is to try and start off as ellen says by not slamming the door and realize that um you can't you as much as you can't choose your family you can't choose your neighbors a lot of the time and it's always in everyone's interest to try and form the most amicable relationship possible and the viewpoint of a current british government and i was on a very similar call last night at university about a united ireland and the differences and opinions of the tone of a british government can change very quickly and i think that always needs to be bear in mind and whilst we're having huge difficulty with lord frost and others um we know if that would happen to be louise haye or lisa and andy or someone like that or even give it a throwback to julian smith it would have been very different um different kettle of fish so i think that's worth bearing in mind that no one's touched upon the most important relationship for scotland in the world as much as people might necessarily like to say it is looking down south as well can i can i ask ellen and anthony and neil what would be your advice to scotland or the scottish independence movement rather in order to try and get the british government to recognize your right to self-determination win the elections in may with the westminster elections and um don't tear yourselves apart at the same time um well i mean i think the the issue of of the majority is going to be a big difference for westminster i mean in terms of if the snp or whatever get majority don't get majority i mean really that should make a difference if there's a majority of the scottish parliament of however many parties that want a referendum there should be referendum you know but i think will make a big difference to the psyche westminster whether or not there's a majority government asking for a referendum i can say it's just like 2011 and so on ellen i would say start thinking about the kinds of pressure that can be applied whether it's civil disobedience or civil obedience to be obedient in the most annoying way possible all of that ups the pressure and we should be doing a lot of that because as long as it's easier to say no to scotland than it is to say yes the relationship that we're dealing with here is one that is of a power imbalance can i ask you ellen um there's some there's always an argument about this in terms of civilian disobedience making a difference or civil disobedience to use a technical term pissing everybody off um well i think the argument has really shifted in the last 20 years because 20 years ago people kept saying oh it's not going to change anything you know you're just going to have to get out your fists and then smash them into somebody else's face so it's nice that we're moving on from that part of the argument um it's turning out that civil disobedience and civil obedience are two different paths that make it a multitude times more likely for civil movements to succeed in the world and that's increasing still in trend and so it's it's a worthwhile tool using and it's especially a tool worth using when you are experiencing a power imbalance we can be nice but we can also be less cooperative if you would like to deal with nice us maybe treat us better we're going to take another question now which is completely separate from what we've been discussing um which is uh a question again i think it's from an asking whether or not we should join the nordic union not instead of the eu but as well as the eu anthony i think it makes sense for scotland to have a close relationship with the nordic council and obviously the nordic states um i've suggested that there should be a strategic partnership agreement between the nordic states beat up directly with the northern council otherwise in scotland but i don't really see scotland being a member of the nordic council at least not initially given obviously the members you know have much closer links and particularly linguistically and so on but obviously you know if you think about scotland engaging in the european union with the the nordic countries that are in the eu the three of them um you know uh nordic countries in northern baltic countries and also ireland you know really really important partners for scotland in terms of forming coalitions and trying to drive progress in the eu so really important but i don't see scotland joining the northern council new yeah i think this is actually a really good point and it shows the opportunities and some of the irish government are pursuing too we're observer status of the arctic council we're now in the francophone and we're in the mediterranean alliance slightly selective geographic interpretation of the sea that runs south to us but all these things are important and it's all about relationship building and just because you're not in the eu doesn't mean you can't be part of those relationships so within the eu we have the new hanseatic league in the hanseated league and the norwegians feed into that a lot because there's a lot of common areas of interest and certainly this is where i talk about the existing um bilateral work that the scottish government is doing and i got to a stage a couple years ago when i was sick of seeing mike russell in dublin he was over every second week and it was always very pleasant conversation and it was grand but you know what i mean it's using that constantly and scottish government ministers are not and cabinet secretaries are very well except well respected abroad um regardless of their political affiliations they are seen as competent and they are seen as engaging and appreciating um scotland's place in the world and i remember when he was the relevant minister ben mcpherson made a very powerful speech in relation to um eu nationals being welcome to remain in scotland and that like that transferred over and got into irish media and went down very well from so that's why i talk about the importance of scottish ministers maximizing the bilateral ties that they have there already and one of the things that we learned that has stood to us most importantly was during the economic crisis we like everyone had a bit of a a fire sale cutting down our diplomatic ties but we maintained an embassy in every single eu member state and that was really important during the brexit process before the british government had a single meeting with another eu member state the irish government you're going to think i'm making this up they had 1500 different bilateral meetings with other eu member states and eu institutional stakeholders showing that the biggest problem in withdrawal is the situation that the only land frontier remaining is on the island of ireland the scottish government have a wonderful office in dublin i think it has five staff imagine had one of those in every single member state and then the ones that are crucial um brussels berlin paris probably copenhagen given the geography um the hague and dublin imagine that 20 staff it can do it it has the resources to do it it has the the bricks and mortar to do it and i think that is that feeds into things like the the nordic union the arctic council the francophone mediterranean alliance might be a bit of a stretch but sure look we'll consider you all the same we vote there thanks new ellen i'm not sure what we're talking about i'm sorry alan then what is the question originally we've gone around the houses a bit since the original question but the question was whether or not we should join the nordic union as well as the european union i think relations are good no matter you know what you're doing there's a geographic similarity between scotland and the other nordic countries as well as ireland but um you don't have to all play the same game to be having a games night together maybe just all have fun playing unlike you all and i've been putting religiously putting my mute button on so now that i've not got it on i'll put it on if you want me to put it on if you've got a contribution to make to this question that's fine if not right i'm going to move on because um we stopped taking questions because they're coming in thick and fast and we're dirtying about all over the shop so i want to um wind up this evening by asking you basically the same question um i want to ask you whether or not you think um scotland will become an independent country and in what time scale and i'll start with you anthony um do i think people vote for independence at the next referendum yes i do and when would a referendum happen uh i think that you know if there's a majority for independence which i imagine would be the elect the election in may that a referendum might happen in 2022 or perhaps maybe a bit later but i don't see what happening this year regardless of what happens let me just ask a supplementary assuming that um there is a referendum for the sake of argument in 2022 um do you think a yes vote will be achieved this time me yes yes i do i do think there'd be a majority for independence neil i know you don't live here and um you're looking on from afar but you're one of our closest and most valued neighbors so you've probably got an opinion on it yeah i can see an independent scotland returning to eu by 2030 i think scotland will be independent before ireland is united that's a very interesting point can i also ask you then if you think ireland will be united in what time scale hopefully within my lifetime but we have much more difficult conversations to have to be honest curiously enough that's the timescale i'm worried about in my lifetime as well ellen yeah i think there can't be no no real doubt about whether scotland would vote for independence now i think it's up to the scottish government as well as the independence campaign to make that case but we have everything to play for and all the you know momentum on our side in terms of time scale um i'm not as optimistic though i would love to be i don't see the the basic pillars put into place at the moment that are required i know there's some discussion about whether a white paper is needed or not but when you say that you're going to produce one and then you don't the that to me doesn't ring off delivering um the promises and that's why i'm after several times of being marched up the hill fairly dubious about marching up another hill every year from here on until it maybe happens so i'd like to see it as soon as possible i've been saying that for years i'm waiting to be convinced because i know at that point we'll all pull together and make it happen helen i think it's going to be very difficult for britain to say together i think britain as a concept is bound by the monarchy the political architecture of the united kingdom uh colonialism all these things are falling they really are they're falling and there's such a centrifugal force i think unleashed by brexit but as they're limited to brexit that means what we understand as the british isles as uh about to go through a transformation that we're only now just starting to see the first glimpses of uh the pandemic one uh impact on that the coming economic recession on the back of the last economic recession will impact on that um i think it's only a matter of time before britain fails however i don't yet know what the mechanism for scotland to achieve its independence yet will be okay well listen um congratulations everybody on being the only broadcast that's going out to the nation in the last 40 hours which hasn't to any juncture mentioned harry and megan i'm really very grateful to you for all of that i'm very grateful to everybody's contribution and i'm very grateful to all the people who were kind enough to tune in to us tonight um yes eastern part sharks just along the road from me here in in mid-argyle and onwards and upwards for all of the yes groups all over scotland not next year in jerusalem maybe but maybe the year after thank you very much everybody

Channel: IndependenceLive

Views: 1,507

Rating: 4.9036145 out of 5

Keywords: scottish independence, scottish indy, scottish politics, politics in scotland, independence in scotland, indyref2

Id: Fh0lGjxgOos

Length: 100min 18sec (6018 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021