[This article is released and provided under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 license – re-publish it as you wish, but please give credit anywhere you post this 🙂 ; quoting excerpts is allowed, so long as you link back here, or include the full text in appendix]

Several prominent figures in Europe – if not the elected leaders themselves – have expressed support for welcoming an independent Scotland into the EU.

This brings me hope on the one hand of continued European identity and membership, but also gives me some dread as to how the political and national landscapes will transform in the very near future.

On the one hand, as a British-national, Scottish-dwelling, French-educated, Polish-named, multi-cultural, bilingual, Eastern-blooded individual, I welcome with delight these encouraging messages, and if we further hear from state leaders themselves their firm intentions of working to speedily include Scotland into the EU on the basis of our former ties and goodwill to all Europeans, then I would certainly vote Yes in a second Independence referendum.

I did however vote “No” in the first.

Back then, we did not have such warm or even active support from the EU council or leaders, and the discussion was framed in the light of “departure”, not unification.

An independent Scotland would need to be in some trade bloc, no matter how small or limited in scope, to ensure it could rely on the weight of supporting equals when facing larger rival allegiances. Be that the UK, the Nordic Council, or the EU, we do not have the negotiating power to strive fully alone, not least because as a country, we have never operated such without the additional power of the UK, nor much to offer that others cannot already provide.

If we do have the expressed support of the EU this time around however, the discussion would specifically be framed in the context of ensuring our coexistence in a larger union of countries – not a smaller one. We would be voting Yes to joining a larger venture, as opposed to voting No to a wholesale reduction of our prospects.

And this is where I am most concerned:

The far right movements of a number of countries across Europe – and a certain prominent American – have become emboldened by the UK’s decision to leave and “take back” their country. Such movements towards independence are expressed in isolationist terms – a mentality of “we fare better alone” – the very sentiment I voted No to myself in 2014.

I would urge, beyond my right and remit, that those other European countries seriously consider what is happening in Britain: the European Union needn’t be harsh to the United Kingdom during the upcoming negotiations at all, as the punishment still would be that it would be solely dealing with the United Kingdom of England and Wales alone, whilst the EU welcomes with satisfaction the arrival of a proud, and in pockets smug, independent Scotland; and perhaps too a Greater Ireland, at the cost of the no-longer so great Britain.

Splintering is an extremely hefty price for any country to pay.

So I’m looking at France, with its Basques, Bretons and Corsicans; at Spain, with its Basques, Catalonians, and Galicians; at Belgium, with its Flemmish and its Walloons; and all other EU countries with its independence-yearning nations – consider very carefully what you do next, and how you phrase your stances.

Strive to be part of something – and not a lone voice in a see of Others. We will always be different from one another, but we must always try to find common ground and camaraderie. Even being united in adversity is better than alone against the entire world.

And to those Basques, Bretons, Catalonians, Corsicans, Flemmish, Galicians, Walloons and the rest – you too need to think carefully how you navigate these murky waters, and hold to account those larger nations you are embedded in.

Scotland is receiving a good deal of heartfelt praise, but who knows how long this will last, and even how it will truly play out in the end. Even within our country here there are reports of increasingly overt xenonphobia where once it was merely latent. Nationalism is not a thing to handle lightly, and (for it to be productive and beneficial to all) should be called upon only to look outward at the world, as a goal to aspire to, not as a place to cut away from.

Above all, I would caution: we are better off with more friends and more allies — Independence should not be the standard-bearer of Isolationism.

[This article is released and provided under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 license – re-publish it as you wish, but please give credit anywhere you post this 🙂 ; quoting excerpts is allowed, so long as you link back here, or include the full text in appendix]