EDINBURGH: Scotland’s leader cautioned Britain on Friday that its willingness to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland after Brexit meant the issue of frontiers could never be used again as an argument against Scottish independence.

Nicola Sturgeon, in comments on Twitter following the overnight breakthrough on Brexit between Britain and the European Union, also said that whatever concessions had been made to Northern Ireland should also apply to Scotland.

Scots, together with Londoners and the Northern Irish, voted to stay in the EU in June 2016’s referendum, but were outgunned by votes in the rest of the United Kingdom.

The vote to leave the European Union came as a second blow for Sturgeon and her party, which, in another referendum in 2014, had been thwarted in a drive for Scottish independence.

“An aside — a UK government that is able to say that come what may, it will avoid hard borders with Ireland/NI after Brexit can never again tell Scotland that independence would mean a hard border between Scotland and (the rest of the UK),” she added.

Continued membership of the EU single market and customs union was the only “sensible” way for the United Kingdom to square the circle of competing demands among its nations as it leaves the EU, Sturgeon argued.

“Move to phase 2 of talks good — but devil is in the detail and things now get really tough. If Brexit is happening (wish it wasn’t) staying in single market and customs union is only sensible option. And any special arrangements for (Northern Ireland) must be available to other UK nations,” she tweeted.

Sturgeon’s government has argued the economic need for Scotland to stay in the single market, even if that means Scotland has a made-to-measure deal within the current structure of the United Kingdom — something London has ruled out.

Sturgeon’s tweet was seized upon by Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who has bolstered her party’s popularity in Scotland with staunch defence of a united UK.

“Right on time Nicola Sturgeon uses any Brexit development to bang the indy drum. Could set your watch by it. Give it a rest,” Davidson tweeted.

Sturgeon retorted: “Democracy, Tory style — shut up and let us inflict whatever damage on Scotland we want.”

Meanwhile, campaigners for EU citizens living in Britain and Britons in the EU reacted sceptically on Friday to the proposed deal in the first phase of Brexit negotiations between Britain and the European Union.

“This deal is even worse than we expected,” said Jane Golding, chair of the British in Europe coalition.

“After 18 months of wrangling the UK and EU have sold 4.5 million people down the river in a grubby bargain that will have a severe impact on ordinary people’s ability to live their lives as we do now.”

Reuters/AFP