A Tale of Two Unions - a Scottish perspective on the EU debate
Possibly the best exposition of the case for a "Remain" vote which I have read so far during the course of the EU Referendum campaign has been written here by Professor Adam Tomkins, who is Professor of Public Law at the University of Glasgow (and one of Ruth Davidson's excellent team of candidates for the Scottish Parliament.)
Professor Tomkins does not feel the same way about the EU referendum as he did about the Scottish independence referendum. Where he would have been heart-broken had Scotland decided to break up the United Kingdom on 18 September 2014, the prospect of leaving the European Union does not fill him with dread. He writes
"I have no love for the European Union. For me – unlike the indyref – this decision is one purely for the head. It’s a cost/benefit analysis, not a matter of visceral belonging or identity. There are things, many things, about the European Union that I dislike; and some that I detest. Its lack of democratic accountability. That it takes on far too much. That it has ventured altogether too far away from its core mission – of economic integration, trespassing into political matters that should have been left to Member States. The Court of Justice of the European Union, hundreds of whose cases I have read, written about, and taught during the course of my academic career, is capable of making the most outrageous decisions.
So the European Union has its problems. But their solution lies not in leaving the EU, but in reforming it. And that process of reform starts with the United Kingdom re-setting its own relationship with the European Union."
Whichever side you are on the article A Tale of Two Unions is worth reading in full.
Professor Tomkins does not feel the same way about the EU referendum as he did about the Scottish independence referendum. Where he would have been heart-broken had Scotland decided to break up the United Kingdom on 18 September 2014, the prospect of leaving the European Union does not fill him with dread. He writes
"I have no love for the European Union. For me – unlike the indyref – this decision is one purely for the head. It’s a cost/benefit analysis, not a matter of visceral belonging or identity. There are things, many things, about the European Union that I dislike; and some that I detest. Its lack of democratic accountability. That it takes on far too much. That it has ventured altogether too far away from its core mission – of economic integration, trespassing into political matters that should have been left to Member States. The Court of Justice of the European Union, hundreds of whose cases I have read, written about, and taught during the course of my academic career, is capable of making the most outrageous decisions.
So the European Union has its problems. But their solution lies not in leaving the EU, but in reforming it. And that process of reform starts with the United Kingdom re-setting its own relationship with the European Union."
Whichever side you are on the article A Tale of Two Unions is worth reading in full.
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