The EU-UK Deal: Some Steps Forward and a Weak Scottish Government Response

The broad strategic partnership agreed on Monday at the EU-UK summit takes the UK’s relations with the European Union some significant steps forward compared to how relations were left by the Tories. But the outline deal is, inevitably, rather low key compared to what the UK had before 2020 as one of the biggest EU member states for almost 50 years.

Keir Starmer talked the deal up calling it a ‘landmark’ agreement and one that “gives us unprecedented access to the EU market, the best of any country outside of the EU or Efta”. The fact that this is ‘the best’ apart from 31 other European countries (27 EU member states, 3 EEA/Efta states, plus Switzerland) is more realistically underwhelming.

The Scottish government response to the deal was remarkably weak and negative. First Minister, John Swinney said the deal over EU access to UK fishing waters was a “horror show” and the sector had been “surrendered” – language used also by Kemi Badenoch for the Tories.

It would be hard to tell from this Scottish government reaction that the outline deal (with many details remaining to be pinned down) covered a wide range of issues from a security and defence pact to linking emissions trading schemes (so avoiding new barriers from carbon border taxes) to looking into the UK participating again in the EU’s internal electricity market, to some type of weak (but better than nothing) deal on youth mobility, to a veterinary agreement so that most agrifood exports from the UK to EU will not need checks and certificates (including seafood, and shellfish), and more.

Keir Starmer said that the deal would bring £9 billion of benefits overall to the UK, though there will be much poring over those numbers. But clearly the lifting of most Brexit barriers to trade for the agrifood, including seafood, sector is significant for businesses in that sector. But since the UK agrifood sector is only 6.5% of UK GDP, this is only a relatively small, though still welcome, easing of the costs of Brexit.

The Scottish government and Tory opposition exaggerated ‘surrender’ response on the fishing sector was in the face of the EU-UK summit agreeing an extension of the existing access to waters deal, agreed by Boris Johnson, for another 12 years. Scotland’s fishing sector represents 70% of the UK sector as a whole but is still small within the Scottish economy – representing only 0.20 % of the Scottish economy in 2022 (according to Scottish government data).

And taking away Brexit barriers that increased costs and slowed access to EU markets for the fishing sector and wider agrifood sector, while retaining the current status quo on EU access to waters, is a positive benefit (and one that Aston university economists have estimated could increase agrifood exports to the EU by 20%).

That depends, too, on any counterfactual on what better deal might have been got on access to waters. But to achieve the vital veterinary deal for agrifoods, there was always going to have to be a deal on access to waters.

A Strategic Scottish Response?

The Scottish government could have reacted much more strategically to the UK-EU deal. They have, after all, been calling for rejoining the EU’s single market and/or customs union, for a youth mobility deal, for lessening Brexit barriers. But instead of arguing that this deal was a step in the right direction – but too little, the Scottish government chose to focus on fisheries.

There are other interesting aspects of the outline deal – not least that the UK will have to align to EU laws both for the veterinary deal and for any deal on access to the EU’s electricity market. But the UK will get some chance to have a say (though no decision-making powers) on new EU laws in these areas (just as Norway and the other EEA members do more broadly as part of their full access to the EU’s single market). It’s an interesting concession on both sides – a bit of cherry-picking for the UK but agreeing to be a rule-taker not a rule-maker in these sectors.

The Scottish government, in theory but not in practice, aims to align to EU laws in devolved areas of agriculture and environment. But, apart from the fact this has not happened, any Scottish alignment, unlike Starmer’s EU deal, would not actually lead to an end to checks or costly certificates, as the Scottish government cannot negotiate such a trade deal with the EU. So, this deal is a step forward – alignment and a removal of barriers.

Cabinet secretary for external affairs, Angus Roberston, insisted in a piece for the Edinburgh Evening News, that the UK government had “traded away the fishing sector”. Yet the fishing sector will continue. And Robertson, then, reluctantly concedes that while the UK-EU deal is, in his view, like a “curate’s egg”, it has a couple of positive points, including the agri-food deal.

The Scottish government has managed to fumble its response to this beginning of undoing some of the damage to Brexit so it sounds a little like a cross between the fishing lobby and the Tory party. It could have chosen to be strong, confident in its pro-European stance, and more strategic.

The Scottish government could and should have responded to the deal as a whole, based on its own, long-standing pro-EU policy positions. It could have welcomed the small steps forward, not least on agrifood, and on energy, defence and so on while also pointing out that it had been asking for such steps and much more. It could have repeated its calls to rejoin the EU or its customs union or its single market. And certainly, it could too have asked why the EU-UK negotiators ended up shifting from a possible 4-5 year extension of EU access to UK waters to a 12 year extension. That would have been sharp, focused, still pro-European – rather than the ‘fishing sector surrender/trading away’ line, aligned with the Tories.

Angus Robertson has also complained at lack of consultation on fisheries as a devolved policy area – albeit trade deals are not devolved. But in his Edinburgh Evening News piece he admits that he and colleagues from other devolved administrations have had ‘professional’ discussions with the UK minister for European affairs, Nick Thomas-Symonds. True, the devolved administrations were not given details or documents as the crucial endgame of the talks unfolded – this is a fair political point to make, though such detailed engagement in highly political talks was probably always unlikely.

Independence in the EU anyone?

The EU will not have been paying much attention to the Scottish government’s response to the EU-UK deal. But those EU diplomats who do follow Scottish politics may have raised an eyebrow or two at the Scottish government’s Brexity-sounding rhetoric on the fishing sector.

There has been a lot of goodwill in the EU to Scotland since Brexit – something capitalised on and promoted by Nicola Sturgeon when she was First Minister. But this is more of a mis-step from John Swinney and colleagues. The goal should surely have been to have sounded much more pro-European than the Starmer government not less.

There’s also an interesting wrinkle here on arguments around independence in the EU. The England-Scotland border has always been a tricky issue in the independence debate. But any reduction in barriers between the UK and EU means a reduction in barriers to trade with the rest of the UK in the scenario of an independent Scotland in the EU. So, this was another angle that might have been referenced as well.

John Swinney did mention independence on bluesky: “Only independence would give us the seat at the EU table to defend Scotland’s interests.” Certainly, a seat at the EU table would be much better for either the UK or an independent Scotland.

But the SNP has always struggled with setting out its position around the EU’s common fisheries policy (CFP) – and that neuralgia seems to have driven its narrow, weak response to the EU-UK deal. And a seat at the EU table or accession negotiations will not give Scotland the ability to stare down France and other member states on the CFP, albeit it will give it some say.

In the end, the Scottish government has a broad, fairly considered European strategy – one that covers both the constitutional status quo and the scenario of independence in the EU. Instead of drawing on those in its response to a significant new EU-UK deal, it chose to narrowly focus on fish from the sidelines. A broad, strong, confident EU statement would have been the wiser, more powerful choice.