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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

Legally, as far as I understand no. But politically? Almost certainly.

If Scotland could remain in the EU (By remaining, not re-joining, which Madrid would oppose) then they almost certainly would. This means that "brexit" would imply the end of the "United" in the UK and I believe that would be enough of a change in circumstances that a) leave politicians could hold off invoking Article 50 without losing face or b) a referendum for the new conditions could be held.

So the Scottish Parliament don't really need to veto Brexit to stop it, they just need to threaten to leave the UK and remain in the EU to d oso.

The new conditions of Brexit (which really were known before but likely not phrased as such) are "Should England and Wales leave the UK and form the United Kingdom of England and Wales, and then leave the EU?". I doubt that's a very popular idea.

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Scotland can't leave the UK and remain in the EU. They would have to become independent and then begin the application process, which could take years. There's a real possibility that some EU members will oppose their application.

EDIT:

"UK Government could use Article 48 of the Lisbon Treaty to apply for a treaty change which would allow Scotland to become a member when it formally becomes independent in 2016.

The Article 48 route has been dismissed by the UK Government and it would also require unanimous approval of all the other 28 EU members. Instead the more likely route is Article 49 which requires Scotland to apply for membership."

This is just from some light Googling, some more informed people may have more details

from http://www.scotsman.com/scottish-independence/key-topic/euro...

I wonder if they could do something crazy and structure Brexit as as England, Wales, and northern Ireland seceding from the UK, without ever actually invoking the exit procedures.

It would probably never happen and would be incredibly silly but it's interesting to think about if it could.

That idea came up in an Economist article, but I just don't see it. Would Scotland even want to keep the Queen?

Source required for this one.

We might not have to leave the uk and rejoin. There's precedence for regions of countries not being in the EU while other are.

Additionally the UK is a union between Scotland and England so we'd technically not be leaving, but choosing to break the union, at which point the UK ceases to exist and becomes Scotland and England (and it's associated region/principalities etc). Since the UK is the member of the EU (not it constituent countries) if the union is broken before the UK leaves the EU then it's a legally grey area as the country that was a member of the EU no longer exists.

England does automatically inherit all treaties that applied to the UK, both countries would need to renegotiate international treaties as two newly separate countries. Though of course England being the bigger country has a lot more weight in these matters. But England would not be RUK, it would be England, and many matters such as EU membership are with UK.

The EU Commission has already said flat out there would have to be a new application.

That application would certainly be vetoed by either the Spanish (catalan issues) or the Germans (Scotland has a bigger deficit than Greece).

Perhaps, but it would be a different situation from a completely new country joining. The Spanish have back pedalled on their previous threats to do so. Not sure about Germany. I'm not say it would definitely happen, only that it would be an unprecedented situation so we can't rely on assumptions either way.

I agree. At this point all assumptions based on the status quo ante have to be treated with great caution. The Spanish may very well accept that the UK/Scotland situation is now different enough from their own that any contagion is unlikely.

The current mood portrayed by Berlin in German media is very pro-Scotland. And the mood of Madrid, too.

If there's one thing we should all be learning from this it's that the 'respectable' media around the world is controlled by people who have little or nothing in common with large chunks of the population and simply cannot be trusted to reliably report on the matter of the EU. The non-tabloid media in the UK were almost united in the idea that leaving the EU was unthinkable, and even post-vote are now in a state of absolute denial about it.

If you want to know what's really going on then the best tool available is still opinion polling (ideally combined with on-the-street interviews to get additional depth).

Polling in Germany is showing rapidly rising anti-Euro feeling since August 2015, if we take AfD support as a proxy for "we don't want to bail out the feckless deficit countries anymore". AfD polling shifts are on a very smooth upward trajectory when averaged and the AfD is anti-Euro.

Given this trajectory and the grumbling the Greek bailouts caused it would be very difficult to convince the Germans to allow the normal EU rules on deficits in joining countries to be broken: they are already slapping down suggestions from Italy that Brexit means austerity policies must be loosened. Why should Germans pay for the Scots?

Germany and many other EU countries (and also, by the way, most European citizens) want European integration to continue.

If an advanced, liberal, english speaking country like Scotland declares its wish to remain or join the EU, that could be seen as a welcome vote in favor of the European idea.

I think it is in Germany's (and Spain's) interest to woo Scotland and make it as easy as possible for them to remain in the EU or rejoin in a seamless fashion.

Spain wouldn't block Scotland's entry to the EU, it comes down to fishing rights, amongst other things:

"However there is another reason closer to the heart of the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy that Spain won’t block Scottish accession to the EU. Interestingly, during the last independence referendum Rajoy was asked three times in an interview with El Pais newspaper whether he would veto Scotland, and three times he refused to reply. He refused to reply because he didn’t want to encourage Scottish independence by telling the truth.

Mariano Rajoy comes from Galicia, and represents the city of A Coruña in the Spanish parliament, the Cortes. The mainstay of the local economy is the fishing industry, and big fishing interests are the main funders of Rajoy’s own local party. The Galician fishing fleet depends on its access to Scottish waters in order to feed Spain’s enormous appetite for seafood, and any attempt by Spain to veto Scottish membership of the EU would threaten that access. Rajoy would then find that his local party’s bank balance was as empty as the fish counter in a Spanish supermarket. He’s not going to let that happen."

https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2016/06/25/an-argument-as...