A new report from the UK Government has this week made clear that an independent Scotland would be regarded as a completely separate state under international law.
Professors James Crawford and Alan Boyle, leading experts on international law, have produced a 58 page legal opinion which says the overwhelming weight of legal opinion makes clear the UK would be regarded by the international community as the ‘continuing state’. The legal opinion confirms that a vote for independence would make Scotland a ‘successor state’ and specifically rejects the proposition, advanced by Scotland’s First Minister, that Scotland and the UK would both be regarded as two new states following any vote for independence.
It is crucial that people are able to consider the benefits that Scotland enjoys as a nation of five million people in a modern, devolved country. This report makes clear what the legal situation is. No one disputes that Scotland could be a separate state, but it would be far from straightforward. As the Prime Minister has said recently, Britain works well. Why break it?
Scotland Office Minister, David Mundell MP said: ‘The devolution settlement is capable of change when the case is made as the Scotland Act 2012 delivered by this government has shown. So it is simply wrong to characterise the referendum as a choice between change and no change. By changing and adapting the devolution settlement will continue to deliver the best of both worlds for Scotland. Independence would end it.’
