Unionists Fail to Learn the Obvious in European Parliament Debacle

It has been a while since my last blog. Indeed my blogging efforts for the month of July were rather pathetic, with a solitary entry being all I could muster the energy to write.

Anyway, a few folk, though mainly my wife Julie, have been on at me to start again, so here we go.

And for my first entry following my period of self imposed exile I thought I would concentrate on an issue that has come to the fore in the last few days; that is the reduced representation that Scotland will have in the European Parliament in future.

There have been some unionist politicians who have expressed their opposition to this reduction in numbers, from seven to six. Struan Stevenson MEP recently had a letter in the Herald newspaper (you can see it at http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.1589522.0.0.php) in which he bemoans the fact that Finland, with the same population as Scotland will retain 14 representatives in the European Parliament - more than double Scotland's representation. He was particularly scathing of the fact that Luxembourg (with a population the size of Edinburgh) will have the same representation as Scotland.

Similarly, David Martin MEP was expressing his disappointment that the UK electoral commission didn't take into account Scotland's distinctive nature when making recommendations as to what parts of the UK lost Members of the European Parliament. And Patricia Ferguson MSP also presented a motion before the Scottish Parliament in the lead up to the Electoral Commission making a final decision which said "that Scotland’s particular geographical circumstances and its devolved system of government suggest that Scottish representation [in the European Parliament] should not be reduced as suggested".

Surely even these unionist representatives realise that it is Scotland's continued non-presence as a full member state of the European Union that leaves us open to this reduction in representation? Scotland's status in the EU at present is that of a mere region of a member state (the UK). This means that we will always be vulnerable to decisions such as this one which seeks to cut our numbers in the European Parliament by one.

Struan Stevenson cited not only Finland and Luxembourg as examples of countries of a comparable or smaller size than Scotland within the EU but with greater representation in the European Parliament. He also mentioned the Republic of Ireland with some 4million people and 13 representatives in the European Parliament and Malta with only 400,000 citizens and 5 representatives, leaving them with a far lower number of citizens per MEP than Scotland. He could have cited other examples as well. Lithuania, with 3.5million people has 13 MEPs; Latvia, with 3million people has 9 MEPs; Estonia, with 1.3million people has 6 MEPs.

Of course, what Struan or most unionist politicians fail to do is draw attention to the fact that each of these examples are those of fully independent full member states of the EU. Maybe they are just worried that the Scottish people might actually understand the full implications of what these examples they band about should actually mean for our country. Perhaps they might even understand it fully themselves one day.