IN my last article before the EU referendum, I ended with the statement: “If England vote to Leave and Scotland votes resoundingly to Stay (60 per cent plus) we can use that to drive Yes support to the required levels. Any independence supporter in Scotland who votes to Leave is now voting against the only scenario that makes independence within the term of this parliament likely.”

Can any independence supporter that still can’t see that please get your brain in gear. I understand why some find it hard to forgive the EU, or rather the friends of David Cameron in the EU, that made unhelpful suggestions in 2014, but that is history, and so is the UK if we play this right. The EU vote hasn’t just opened the door to independence, it has opened the door to a massive economic Brexit bonus for an independent Scotland, gifting us the opportunity to attract tens of thousands of high-paying jobs across many sectors.

It has also turned the economics of independence on its head – voting to remain in the self-destructing, inward-looking, xenophobic and rudderless UK is now the risky option and those No voters (sorry, potential Yes voters) are risk-averse. Brexit is an act of economic arson and independence is starting to look like a fleet of fire engines.

In 2014, I campaigned for Scotland within the EU and also for an independent Scotland to have an open market, a shared currency and some shared regulations with the UK. It seemed both logical and desirable, but if the EU referendum had been held first we might have known better how illogical and undesirable Westminster’s political elite can be, and we might have offered a different prospectus.

The UK will end up doing a deal to access the common market, or EEA, and they will pay through the nose for it, there will be no saving on membership fee, no change to immigration and no votes in the European Parliament, meaning an actual reduction in sovereignty.

Scottish voters who voted for the status quo in 2014, often with a heavy heart and often purely due worries about affordability (the main ones being forced out of the EU, or forced into the Euro with a Yes vote), forwent their national pride for what they saw was “common sense”. Many now look aghast at the narrow-minded, parochial British nationalism that forced a Brexit against their wishes and see that it looks the poor cousin of Scotland’s civic, international, green and equality-led national movement.

The EU scare story meant a lot to No voters in the 2014 referendum: Last week, Labour supporters voted 83 per cent remain, the Lib Dems 84 per cent and even the Conservatives were 73 per cent remain – many of those voters (maybe as many as 500,000) have now moved to supporting independence within the EU but they won’t vote Yes to independence outside the EU. If we leave the EU with the United Kingdom the dream is dead.

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So, we are a year or maybe a year and a half away from a second independence referendum, a referendum that can’t be won unless the potential Yes voters from the Unionist parties see independence as the more stable, affordable and economically promising option, and without the safety net of EU membership that’s a huge ask. So, the 29 per cent of SNP supporters who vented their anger at the the EU for the perceived slight in 2014 need to suck it up or we run the risk of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. We risk trading the 10 per cent sovereignty that the EU requires us to share for the greater good and promotion of shared prosperity for a generation of 100 per cent sovereignty in the hands of a distant, dysfunctional and disinterested Westminster political elite. The EU isn’t just the lesser of two evils it’s the key to prosperity and the key to Scotland achieving its independence.

Whatever EU trade deal the UK does will include open borders, so don’t worry about that old chestnut (Norway and Sweden have open borders) but it will be very hard for the UK to maintain full financial services market access as a non-member; Switzerland hasn’t managed that. As part of the EU the UK’s finance sector has EU passporting rights, essentially meaning financial services firms based in the UK can operate throughout the EU.

Not only will manufacturers who need to sell in the EU need to consider moving from the UK but so will online retailers of products that are sold with finance deals across the EU. But that’s nothing compared to the UK financial services sector, which desperately needs passporting, something many EU members who want to block the UK don’t. The French, Irish, Dutch and Germans in particular are eyeing the juicy bones that post-Brexit Britain’s European finance business may offer up.

The UK controls 17 per cent of EU cross-border bank lending compared to France and Germany’s nine per cent apiece, 41 per cent of foreign exchange turnover versus three per cent and two per cent respectively, 49 per cent of interest rate OTC derivatives versus seven per cent and four per cent, and 18 per cent of hedge funds’ assets versus less than one per cent for France and Germany combined.

If the UK is out and passporting rights are suspended at the point of actual Brexit, and for the following three or four years it takes the UK to do a trade deal that includes financial services, then London’s days as Europe’s leading finance sector hub are done.

If Scotland becomes independent within the EU in the next two years then the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise need to plan for a flood of jobs relocating from England.

Daniel Broby, director of the Centre for Financial Regulation and Innovation, at the University of Strathclyde’s Business School, said this week that if Scotland leaves the European Union, along with the rest of the United Kingdom, this could see the loss of 5,000 finance sector jobs. However, if we could maintain Scotland’s access to the single market then we “could see 50,000 financial jobs finding their way to Edinburgh and Glasgow”.

Financial services is worth about £7 billion to Scotland’s economy, independence within the EU managed correctly could see that double and along with other relocations create an instant, independence-related finance, exporting, manufacturing and construction/property price-led economic boom for Scotland. This sweeps away the worries about affordability and clears the way for an oil-price rebound to create a sovereign oil fund.

The circumstances have changed so much from 2014 that No voters can now change their votes and still think they got it right both times. No matter what party you vote for, with a clear map for Scotland to be independent and prosperous within the EU, what’s not to like?

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